Licorice-saponin A3 is a broad-spectrum inhibitor for COVID-19 by targeting viral spike and anti-inflammation.

"Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest."

"This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos.: 81891010/81891011, 81725023, 82003614, 82173950, 31770192, 32070187, 32161133003 and 82003681) and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No: 2022T150029). We thank Professor George Fu Gao from CAS Institute of Microbiology for helpful and constructive suggestions. We also thank Tao Du, Lun Wang, Jin Xiong, and the entire running team from Zhengdian Biosafety Level 3 Laboratory of Wuhan Institute of Virology for technical support. We thank the Wroclaw Center for Networking and Super Computing for providing generous computer time, and Jingjie PTM BioLab Co., Ltd. (Hangzhou, China) for proteomics mass spectrometry analysis. Yang Yi: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Data curation, Writing - Original draft preparation, Reviewing and Editing, Visualization, Funding acquisition; Wenzhe Li: Methodology, Validation, Formal analysis, Data curation, Writing - Reviewing and Editing, Funding acquisition; Kefang Liu: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Formal analysis, Data curation; Heng Xue: Validation, Formal analysis, Data curation; Rong Yu: Validation; Meng Zhang: Validation; Yang-Oujie Bao: Validation; Xinyuan Lai: Validation; Jingjing Fan: Validation; Yuxi Huang: Validation; Jing Wang: Validation; Xiaomeng Shi: Validation; Junhua Li: Validation; Hongping Wei: Formal analysis, Data curation; Kuanhui Xiang: Formal analysis, Data curation; Linjie Li: Validation; Rong Zhang: Validation; Xin Zhao: Formal analysis, Data curation; Xue Qiao: Formal analysis, Funding acquisition; Hang Yang: Formal analysis, Data curation, Writing - Reviewing and Editing, Supervision, Funding acquisition. Min Ye: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing - Reviewing and Editing, Supervision, Funding acquisition."