Curative Effects of Traditional Chinese Medicine Quercetin in theTreatment of COVID-19 through Inhibiting Viral S-proteins of SARSCoV-2 from Binding to its ACE-2 Receptor

Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes COVID-19, an infectious respiratory disease that broke out internationally at
the beginning of 2020. SARS-CoV-2 enters its host cell as Spike (S) proteins bind to its ACE-2 receptor. Quercetin,
a type of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), has been shown by previous literature to have inhibitory effects in
this pathway. However, quercetin has low bioavailability, and there is little literature on whether quercetin can lead to
inhibitory effects in in-vivo conditions. This study will investigate whether SARS-CoV-2 will be inhibited from binding
to its ACE-2 receptor in Syrian hamster cell lines if (1) quercetin is applied alone, (2) bromelain, a dietary supplement
that can also increase quercetin’s bioavailability, is applied alone, and (3) quercetin and bromelain are both applied. This
study will use RT-qPCR and surface plasmon resonance (SPR) to measure the inhibitory effects of any of the treatments
in this pathway and UV spectrophotometry to measure the solubility of the treatments in saline solution.