The mechanism of Icariside II on NSCLC/COVID-19 based on network pharmacology and molecular docking

Abstract Patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) are susceptible to coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), but related treatments are limited. Icariside II (IS), a metabolite of plant Epimedin, showed anti-inflammation and immunoregulation effects in various diseases. This study aimed to evaluate the effect and mechanisms of IS on NSCLC/COVID-19. Targets of NSCLC/COVID-19 were defined as the common targets of NSCLC and COVID-19. The clinical characteristics of NSCLC patients were collected from The Cancer Genome Atlas Program (TCGA) database and analyzed by the R package of “survival”, univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression model. Further, the targets in IS treatment of NSCLC/COVID-19 were defined as the overlapping targets of IS and NSCLC/COVID-19 targets. Gene Ontology (Go) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analyses of the treatment targets found IS might affect the leucocyte migration, inflammation response, and active oxygen species metabolic process, and regulate the IL-17, TNF, and HIF-1 signaling pathway in NSCLC/COVID-19. Protein-protein interaction (PPI) network identified six hub targets of IS in the treatment of NSCLC/COVID-19 including F2, SELE, MMP1, MMP2, AGTR1, and AGTR2. Molecular docking showed above target proteins had a great binding degree to IS. Our finding indicated that IS exerts therapeutic effects in NSCLC patients infected with COVID-19, supporting a further pre-clinical study to validate the related effect and underlying mechanism.