A novel fermented Yi traditional medicine efficiently suppresses the replication of SARS-CoV-2 in vitro

  1. Shisong Fang
  2. Benhong Xu
  3. Xiangrong Song
  4. Wukun Liu
  5. Yongmei Xie
  6. Xifei Yang

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Abstract

Currently, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has a worldwide epidemic, causing more than 80 million infections and more than 1.7 million deaths. The pandemic has led to the closure of enterprises and schools in many countries, resulting in serious disruption of the global economy and social activities. Remdesivir is currently approved by the FDA for the treatment of COVID-19, but the WHO declared that Remdesivir is almost ineffective against COVID-19. The research and development of vaccines has made great progress, but it will take at least several months for safe and effective vaccines to be widely used clinically. Clinical studies revealed that some Traditional Chinese Medicines, such as Lianhua Qingwen Capsule and Huoxiang Zhengqi Water, exhibited excellent therapeutic effect on COVID-19. However, until now, there is still no cure for COVID-19. Therefore, there is an urgent need to find medicines that can effectively fight against the SARS-CoV-2. In this study, JIE BEN No. 10 (JB10), a fermentation broth produced by Yi traditional medicine fermentation technology, was explored for its anti-coronavirus activity. The in vitro data showed that JB10 could significantly suppresses the replication of the SARS-CoV-2 with an EC 50 of 769.1 times dilution and a selection index of 42.68. Further studies indicated that JB10 had significant anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activities. The analysis of active components suggested that JB10 contained a large amount of superoxide dismutase (SOD), flavones, polyphenols, crude polysaccharide, etc. which may explain the anti-coronavirus activity, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects. Our study provides a new potentially therapeutic strategy for COVID-19.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.12.29.424534: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Cell Line Authenticationnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Experimental Models: Cell Lines
    SentencesResources
    Materials: Vero E6 cell line and murine macrophage RAW 264.7 cell line were purchased from ATCC (Manassas, VA, USA).
    Vero E6
    suggested: None
    The RAW 264.7 cell line was cultured in Dulbecco’s modified eagle’s medium (American Type Culture Collection) supplemented with 10% heat-inactivated fetal serum, and streptomycin, and penicillin.
    RAW 264.7
    suggested: None

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.12.29.424534v1 on bioRxiv