Luteolin Potentially Treating Prostate Cancer and COVID-19 Analyzed by the Bioinformatics Approach: Clinical Findings and Drug Targets.

Yu Ye,Manying Chen,Ziyan Huang,Yongfeng Mo,Zengnan Mo

doi:10.3389/fendo.2021.802447

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a serious epidemic, characterized by potential mutation and can bring about poor vaccine efficiency. It is evidenced that patients with malignancies, including prostate cancer (PC), may be highly vulnerable to the SARS-CoV-2 infection. Currently, there are no existing drugs that can cure PC and COVID-19. Luteolin can potentially be employed for COVID-19 treatment and serve as a potent anticancer agent. Our present study was conducted to discover the possible drug target and curative mechanism of luteolin to serve as treatment for PC and COVID-19. The differential gene expression of PC cases was determined via RNA sequencing. The application of network pharmacology and molecular docking aimed to exhibit the drug targets and pharmacological mechanisms of luteolin. In this study, we found the top 20 up- and downregulated gene expressions in PC patients. Enrichment data demonstrated anti-inflammatory effects, where improvement of metabolism and enhancement of immunity were the main functions and mechanism of luteolin in treating PC and COVID-19, characterized by associated signaling pathways. Additional core drug targets, including MPO and FOS genes, were computationally identified accordingly. In conclusion, luteolin may be a promising treatment for PC and COVID-19 based on bioinformatics findings, prior to future clinical validation and application.

Highlights

Epidemiological findings suggest that coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has evolved and mutated around the world, leading to higher fatality rates [1]
The Venn diagram between prostate cancer (PC) targets and COVID-19-related targets is shown in Figure 2, wherein 207 intersection targets in PC and COVID-19 were acquired
The results show that the biological process (BP) of drug genes were mainly involved in the response to toxic substances, regulation of body fluid levels, response to cAMP, positive regulation of cytosolic calcium ion concentration, organic hydroxy compound metabolic process, adenylate cyclase-activating G protein-coupled receptor signaling pathway, regulation of calcium ion transport into cytosol, leukocyte proliferation, regulation of myoblast fusion, and myotube differentiation

Summary

Introduction

Epidemiological findings suggest that coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has evolved and mutated around the world, leading to higher fatality rates [1]. There may be extensive vaccinations worldwide but mutated severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) affects the protective efficacy of these vaccines [3] Other existing data show that SARS-CoV-2-infected tumor cases may induce increased lethality rate than tumor-free patients based on prospective cohort analysis [4]. Since SARS-CoV-2 has been prevalent, hospitalization is optimized for those with coronavirus infection, which disseminates to other patients, including PC cases [7]. It is visibly reasoned that PC patients with COVID-19 can be refractory to commonly used treatment as effective clinical prescription is non-existent. We need to screen and explore some candidate bioactive ingredients to treat PC and COVID-19, which poses as a current challenge

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