Common dandelion ( Taraxacum officinale ) efficiently blocks the interaction between ACE2 cell surface receptor and SARS-CoV-2 spike protein D614, mutants D614G, N501Y, K417N and E484K in vitro

  1. Hoai Thi Thu Tran
  2. Nguyen Phan Khoi Le
  3. Michael Gigl
  4. Corinna Dawid
  5. Evelyn Lamy

Reviewed by

Read the full article See related articles

Discuss this preprint

Start a discussion What are Sciety discussions?

Listed in

Log in to save this article

Abstract

On 11th March 2020, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, was declared as a global pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). To date, there are rapidly spreading new “variants of concern” of SARS-CoV-2, the United Kingdom (B.1.1.7), the South African (B.1.351) or Brasilian (P.1) variant. All of them contain multiple mutations in the ACE2 receptor recognition site of the spike protein, compared to the original Wuhan sequence, which is of great concern, because of their potential for immune escape. Here we report on the efficacy of common dandelion ( Taraxacum officinale ) to block protein-protein interaction of spike S1 to the human ACE2 cell surface receptor. This could be shown for the original spike D614, but also for its mutant forms (D614G, N501Y, and mix of K417N, E484K, N501Y) in human HEK293-hACE2 kidney and A549-hACE2-TMPRSS2 lung cells. High molecular weight compounds in the water-based extract account for this effect. Infection of the lung cells using SARS-CoV-2 spike pseudotyped lentivirus particles was efficiently prevented by the extract and so was virus-triggered pro-inflammatory interleukin 6 secretion. Modern herbal monographs consider the usage of this medicinal plant as safe. Thus, the in vitro results reported here should encourage further research on the clinical relevance and applicability of the extract as prevention strategy for SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Significance statement

SARS-CoV-2 is steadily mutating during continuous transmission among humans. This might eventually lead the virus into evading existing therapeutic and prophylactic approaches aimed at the viral spike. We found effective inhibition of protein-protein interaction between the human virus cell entry receptor ACE2 and SARS-CoV-2 spike, including five relevant mutations, by water-based common dandelion ( Taraxacum officinale ) extracts. This was shown in vitro using human kidney (HEK293) and lung (A549) cells, overexpressing the ACE2 and ACE2/TMPRSS2 protein, respectively. Infection of the lung cells using SARS-CoV-2 pseudotyped lentivirus was efficiently prevented by the extract. The results deserve more in-depth analysis of dandelions’ effectiveness in SARS-CoV-2 prevention and now require confirmatory clinical evidence.

Article activity feed

  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.03.19.435959: (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
    Cell lines and culture conditions: Human embryonic kidney 293 (HEK293) cells, stably expressing hACE2, were generously provided by Prof. Dr. Stefan Pöhlmann (Göttingen, Germany).
    HEK293
    suggested: CLS Cat# 300192/p777_HEK293, RRID:CVCL_0045)
    Human A549-hACE2-TMPRSS2 cells, generated from the human lung A549 cell line were purchased from InvivoGen SAS (Toulouse Cedex 4, France) and maintained in DMEM, high glucose supplemented with 10% heat-inactivated FCS, 100 U/ml penicillin/streptomycin, 100 µg/ml normocin, 0.5 µg/ml puromycin and 300 µg/ml hygromycin.
    A549
    suggested: None
    Infection of A549-hACE2-TMPRSS2 cells using SARS-CoV-2 pseudotyped lentivirus: SARS-CoV-2 spike pseudotyped lentivirus particles, produced with SARS-CoV-2 spike (Genbank Accession #QHD43416.1) as the envelope glycoproteins instead of the commonly used VSV-G, were purchased from BPS Bioscience, (Catalog#: 79942, Biomol, Hamburg).
    A549-hACE2-TMPRSS2
    suggested: None
    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    The cells were analysed by using a FACSCalibur (BD Biosciences, Heidelberg, Germany), 10.000 events were acquired.
    FACSCalibur
    suggested: None
    The median fluorescence intensity (MFI) of each sample were determined using FlowJo software (Ashland, Oregon, USA)
    FlowJo
    suggested: (FlowJo, RRID:SCR_008520)
    Statistical analysis: Results were analysed using the GraphPad Prism 6.0 software (La Jolla, California, USA).
    GraphPad Prism
    suggested: (GraphPad Prism, RRID:SCR_002798)

    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: Please consider improving the rainbow (“jet”) colormap(s) used on page 7. At least one figure is not accessible to readers with colorblindness and/or is not true to the data, i.e. not perceptually uniform.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No funding statement was detected.
    • 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 10.1101/2021.03.19.435959 on bioRxiv