Yip Ka Man, Lee Kwan Ming, Ng Tzi Bun, Xu Shujun, Yung Ken Kin Lam, Qu Shaogang, Cheung Allen Ka Loon, Sze Stephen Cho Wing
Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region, China.
Golden Meditech Center for NeuroRegeneration Sciences, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region, China.
Chin Med. 2022 Jul 27;17(1):88. doi: 10.1186/s13020-022-00635-2.
Since the outbreak of COVID-19 has resulted in over 313,000,000 confirmed cases of infection and over 5,500,000 deaths, substantial research work has been conducted to discover agents/ vaccines against COVID-19. Undesired adverse effects were observed in clinical practice and common vaccines do not protect the nasal tissue. An increasing volume of direct evidence based on clinical studies of traditional Chinese medicines (TCM) in the treatment of COVID-19 has been reported. However, the safe anti-inflammatory and anti-fibrotic proprietary Chinese medicines nasal spray, designated as Allergic Rhinitis Nose Drops (ARND), and its potential of re-purposing for suppressing viral infection via SARS-CoV-2 RBD (Delta)- angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) binding have not been elucidated.
To characterize ARND as a potential SARS-CoV-2 entry inhibitor for its possible preventive application in anti-virus hygienic agent.
Network pharmacology analysis of ARND was adopted to asacertain gene targets which were commonly affected by COVID-19. The inhibitory effect of ARND on viral infection was determined by an in vitro pseudovirus assay. Furthermore, ARND was confirmed to have a strong binding affinity with ACE2 and SARS-CoV-2 spike-RBD (Delta) by ELISA. Finally, inflammatory and fibrotic cell models were used in conjunction in this study.
The results suggested ARND not only inhibited pseudovirus infection and undermined the binding affinity between ACE2 and the Spike protein (Delta), but also attenuated the inflammatory response upon infection and may lead to a better prognosis with a lower risk of pulmonary fibrosis. The data in this study also provide a basis for further development of ARND as an antiviral hygienic product and further investigations on ARND in the live virus, in vivo and COVID-19 patients. ARND holds promise for use in the current COVID-19 outbreak as well as in future pandemics.
ARND could be considered as a safe anti-SARS-CoV-2 agent with potential to prevent SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus infection.
自新冠疫情爆发以来，已导致超过3.13亿例确诊感染病例和超过550万例死亡，人们开展了大量研究工作以寻找抗新冠病毒的药物/疫苗。临床实践中观察到了不良副作用，且普通疫苗无法保护鼻组织。越来越多基于中药治疗新冠病毒的临床研究的直接证据被报道。然而，一种安全的抗炎和抗纤维化 proprietary 中药鼻喷雾剂，名为变应性鼻炎滴鼻剂（ARND），以及其通过抑制严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2受体结合域（Delta）-血管紧张素转换酶2（ACE2）结合来重新用于抑制病毒感染的潜力尚未得到阐明。
将ARND表征为一种潜在的严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2进入抑制剂，用于其在抗病毒卫生制剂中的预防性应用。
采用ARND的网络药理学分析来确定受新冠病毒共同影响的基因靶点。通过体外假病毒试验确定ARND对病毒感染的抑制作用。此外，通过酶联免疫吸附测定证实ARND与ACE2和严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2刺突蛋白（Delta）具有很强的结合亲和力。最后，本研究联合使用了炎症和纤维化细胞模型。
结果表明，ARND不仅抑制假病毒感染并破坏ACE2与刺突蛋白（Delta）之间的结合亲和力，还减轻了感染后的炎症反应，并可能导致更好的预后，降低肺纤维化风险。本研究中的数据也为进一步开发ARND作为抗病毒卫生产品以及在活病毒、体内和新冠病毒患者中对ARND进行进一步研究提供了依据。ARND有望用于当前的新冠疫情以及未来的大流行。
ARND可被视为一种安全的抗严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2药物，具有预防严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2感染的潜力。
