Network Pharmacology Approach to Investigate the Preventive Mechanism of Hunan Expert Group Recommended Chinese Medicine Prevention No. 2 Prescription Against COVID-19

ObjectiveTo explore the possible preventive mechanism of Hunan expert group recommended Chinese medicine prescription of No. 2 (Pre-No. 2) against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) by network pharmacology method.MethodsThe target proteins of effective components and active compounds in Pre-No. 2 were screened by searching the Tradi-tional Chinese Medicine Systems Pharmacology Database and Analysis Platform (TCMSP). A component-target-disease interac-tion network of Pre-No. 2 was constructed by Cytoscape 3.7.2, gene ontology (GO) analysis, and Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes (KEGG) analysis of target protein pathway by DAVID.ResultsA total of 163 compounds and 278 target protein targets in Pre-No. 2 were collected from the TCMSP database. Kaempferol, wogonin, 7-methoxy-2-methyl isoflavone, formononetin, isorhamnetin, and licochalcone A were the most frequent targets in the regulatory network. GO enrichment analysis showed that Pre-No. 2 regulated response to virus, viral processes, humoral immune responses, defense responses to virus and viral entry into host cells. KEGG enrichment analysis showed that the formula regulated the NF-κB signaling pathway, B cell receptor signaling pathway, viral carcinogenesis, T cell signaling pathway and FcγR-mediated phagocytosis signaling pathway.ConclusionsPre-No. 2 may play a preventive role against COVID-19 through regulation of the Toll-like signaling, T cell signaling, B cell signaling and other signaling pathways. It may re-gulate the immune system to protect against anti-influenza virus.