Similar to April’s innovation series issue, we have chosen an article that deals with the question of whether a cardiotoxic effect is of direct or systemic origin. In this month’s issue we are not looking at CAR-T related cardiac toxicity, but SARS-CoV-2 related severe cardiovascular symptoms.
Read the article by Marchiano et al., 2021 and learn how SARS-CoV-2 selectively infects hPSC-derived cardiomyocytes via the viral ACE2 receptor and how viral transcripts become a large fraction of the cellular mRNA after infection. SARS-CoV-2 viral infection also impairs functional properties of hPSC-derived cardiomyocytes on electrophysiological and contractile levels and causes widespread cell death.
According to this data, COVID-19 related cardiac symptoms can result from a direct cardiotoxic effect of SARS-CoV-2.
Find the article here
