COVID affects Heart Cell can have lasting damage|Study

Last updated on September 24th, 2020 at 04:21 pm

COVID-19 is known to affect our lungs and respiratory system, but this recent research finds that it can also affect our heart. In one of my previous blog, I have written about the research that finds that the novel coronavirus affects our brain and can lead to brain stroke.

It seems COVID-19 can affect each and every organ of our body negatively and this new study made by a scientist at the Gladstone Institute in San Francisco, USA reveals that it has unique ability to inflict damage to heart cells. The findings were published on bioRxiv and it claims that this could be the reason for cardiac dysfunction in the person recovering from this virus.

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COVID-19 & Cardiac dysfunction

It is already known that up to 50% of all COVID-19 survivor suffers from cardiac dysfunction. There are many independent reports has found that these patients frequently present with significant myocardial damage even without prior cardiovascular disease (CVD), indicating that viral infection may be directly responsible for the cardiac damage.

This new study puts more insight into how this virus causes damage to heart cells. Scientist observed that when heart cell “sarcomeres” is exposed to COVID-19 virus infection some of the cells appeared to be diced into small, regularly sized fragments.

Normally, these heart cell are organized into long filaments aligned in the same direction. These sarcomeres control the coordinated contraction of heart cells to produce the normal heartbeat.

“The sarcomere disruptions we discovered would make it impossible for the heart muscle cells to beat properly,” explains Conklin, who is also a professor of medicine, cellular and molecular pharmacology, and ophthalmology at UCSF.

This heart cell can be used to screen drug

This research not only provide the impact of COVID-19 on heart cell, but it also gives hope to the research team who is planning to use heart cell to test and screen novel drugs that could help mitigate the effects of COVID-19 in the heart, as well as other tissues susceptive to SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Keep Reading: Heart attack survivor: Arthritis drug may prevent future attack

Journal references:

SARS-CoV-2 infection of human iPSC-derived cardiac cells predicts novel cytopathic features in hearts of COVID-19 patientsJuan A. Pérez-Bermejo, Serah Kang, Sarah J. Rockwood, Camille R. Simoneau, David A. Joy, Gokul N. Ramadoss, Ana C. Silva, Will R. Flanigan, Huihui Li, Ken Nakamura, Jeffrey D. Whitman, Melanie Ott, Bruce R. Conklin, Todd C. McDevittbioRxiv 2020.08.25.265561; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.08.25.265561