Potential Natural Compounds for Preventing 2019-nCoV Infection

2019-nCoV, a novel coronavirus, caused the pneumonia outbreak in China and continue to expand. The host receptor for 2019-nCoV Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), which is the same as the host receptor of SARS-CoV. Targeting ACE2 holds the promise for preventing 2019-nCoV infection. Chinese Medicine herbs could be a valuable pool for identifying active compounds for treating infection of 2019-nCoV. In this study, we summarize several active compounds including baicalin, Scutellarin, Hesperetin, Nicotianamine and glycyrrhizin that could have potential anti-2019-nCoV effects, and we conduct molecular docking to predict their capacity for binding ACE2, which may subsequently prevent the 2019nCoV infection. We propose that these selected compounds worth further investigation for preventing 2019-nCoV.

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