Abstract:
Rhizoma Polygonati (huangjing in Chinese, 黄精) is a medicine food homology herb used as a component of
traditional Chinese medicine treating COVID-19 in the current pandemic emergency in China but the mechanisms remain elusive. Here using TCMSP and Swiss Target Prediction databases to sort out the potential
targets of the main chemical components and GenCLiP3, NCBI, and GeneCard databases to search for COVID-19
related targets, the chemical compound-target-pathway network was analyzed. Each component was molecularly docked with host cell target angiotensin converting enzyme II, SARS-CoV-2 targets Spike protein, RNAdependent RNA polymerase, or 3CL hydrolase. Our results showed a higher affinity of the compound diosgenin
and (+)-Syringaresinol-O-beta-D-glucoside binding to the three SARS-CoV-2 proteins compared to the other
compounds tested. Thus, our data suggest that potential compounds in Rhizoma Polygonati may act on different
targets with viral and cancer related signaling and have a great potential in treatment of COVID-19.