Ginseng for COVID-19

AbstractThere is an urgent need for preventive and therapeutic drugs to effectively treat and prevent viral diseases from resurfacing as they emerge during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aims to assess the antiviral effects of four natural compounds commonly used in traditional medicine to treat SARS-CoV-2 infection. A cytotoxicity, dose-dependent, and plaque reduction assay was performed on Vero CCL-81 cells to figure out their effects on the cells. Quantification of cytokines was assessed. In silico analysis for the selected compound was also evaluated. Results revealed that the compounds could disrupt the viral replication cycle through direct inhibition of the virus or immune system stimulation. The cytotoxicity assay results revealed that the compounds were well tolerated by the cells, indicating that the compounds were not toxic to the cells. This study evaluated the antioxidant capacities of propolis, curcumin, quercetin, and ginseng using ABTS, FRAP, and CUPRAC assays, revealing that propolis exhibited the highest antioxidant activity of ABTS with 1250.40 ± 17.10 μmol Trolox eq/g, with FRAP values reaching 1200.55 ± 15.90 μmol Fe2⁺ eq/g and CUPRAC values of 1150.80 ± 14.20 μmol Trolox eq/g at 1000 µg/mL, highlighting its potential as a potent natural antioxidant. The results of the plaque reduction assay revealed that the compounds could reduce the size and number of plaques, indicating that the compounds could inhibit the virus replication cycle. Subsequently, using molecular docking to analyze the effect of propolis, curcumin, quercetin, and ginseng as inhibitors, it was unveiled that the four compounds are likely to have the potential to inhibit the protease activity, spike protein S1, and RNA polymerase of SARS-CoV-2 and the virus titer was reduced by 100% after post-infection using propolis as an inhibitor control. Graphical Abstract

IntroductionThe COVID-19 Disease Map project is a large-scale community effort uniting 277 scientists from 130 Institutions around the globe. We use high-quality, mechanistic content describing SARS-CoV-2-host interactions and develop interoperable bioinformatic pipelines for novel target identification and drug repurposing. MethodsExtensive community work allowed an impressive step forward in building interfaces between Systems Biology tools and platforms. Our framework can link biomolecules from omics data analysis and computational modelling to dysregulated pathways in a cell-, tissue- or patient-specific manner. Drug repurposing using text mining and AI-assisted analysis identified potential drugs, chemicals and microRNAs that could target the identified key factors.ResultsResults revealed drugs already tested for anti-COVID-19 efficacy, providing a mechanistic context for their mode of action, and drugs already in clinical trials for treating other diseases, never tested against COVID-19. DiscussionThe key advance is that the proposed framework is versatile and expandable, offering a significant upgrade in the arsenal for virus-host interactions and other complex pathologies.

COVID-19 pandemic caused by the novel SARS-CoV-2 has impacted human livelihood globally. Strenuous efforts have been employed for its control and prevention; however, with recent reports on mutated strains with much higher infectivity, transmissibility, and ability to evade immunity developed from previous SARS-CoV-2 infections, prevention alternatives must be prepared beforehand in case. We have perused over 128 recent works (found on Google Scholar, PubMed, and ScienceDirect as of February 2023) on medicinal plants and their compounds for anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity and eventually reviewed 102 of them. The clinical application and the curative effect were reported high in China and in India. Accordingly, this review highlights the unprecedented opportunities offered by medicinal plants and their compounds, candidates as the therapeutic agent, against COVID-19 by acting as viral protein inhibitors and immunomodulator in (32 clinical trials and hundreds of in silico experiments) conjecture with modern science. Moreover, the associated foreseeable challenges for their viral outbreak management were discussed in comparison to synthetic drugs.

Many inflammatory mechanisms are involved in the pathophysiology of COVID-19 infection. COVID-19 inhibits IFN antiviral responses, so we should expect an out-of-control viral replication. “Cytokine storms” occur due to the over-production of pro-inflammatory cytokines after an influx of neutrophils and monocytes/macrophages and may be responsible for the immunopathology of the lung involvement. Several cascades have been reported in the activation process of NF-κB. In this paper, to find new therapeutic options for COVID-19 infection, we reviewed some natural products that could potentially inhibit the NF-κB pathway. We found that sevoflurane, quercetin, resveratrol, curcumin, KIOM-C, bergenin, garcinia kola, shenfu, piperlongumine, wogonin, oroxylin, plantamajoside, naringin, ginseng, kaempferol, allium sativum L, illicium henryi, isoliquiritigenin, lianhua qingwen, magnoflorine, and ma Huang Tang might be effective in inhibiting the NF-KB pathway. These natural products could be helpful in the control of COVID-19 infections. However, larger clinical trials are needed to ascertain the efficacy of these products fully.