University of Queensland researchers have discovered how COVID-19 damages the heart, opening the door to future treatments.
This initial study, with a small cohort, found that COVID-19 damaged DNA in heart tissue, which was not detected in flu samples.
Dr Arutha Kulasinghe, a researcher at UQ’s Diamantina Institute, said the team found that while COVID-19 and influenza are serious respiratory viruses, they appeared to affect heart tissue very differently.
“Compared to the 2009 flu pandemic, COVID has caused more severe and long-term cardiovascular disease, but what caused it at the molecular level was not known,” said Dr. Kulasinghe.
“During our study, we were unable to detect viral particles in cardiac tissues from patients with COVID-19, but what we found were tissue changes associated with DNA damage and repair.
“DNA damage and repair mechanisms promote genomic instability and are linked to chronic diseases such as diabetes, cancer, atherosclerosis and neurodegenerative disorders, so it is important to understand why this happens in patients with COVID-19”.
Data associated with the impact of COVID on the heart has previously been limited to blood biomarkers and physiological measurement, as obtaining cardiac biopsy samples is invasive.
This study was able to gain deeper insights using real heart tissues collected during autopsies from seven COVID patients in Brazil, two people who died from the flu, and six control patients.
UQ Professor John Fraser, who established the International COVID-19 Critical Care Consortium, said the findings provided insight into how COVID-19 affected the body compared to other respiratory viruses.
“When we looked at heart tissue samples from influenza, we identified that it caused excess inflammation,” Professor Fraser said.
“Whereas we found that COVID-19 attacked the heart’s DNA, probably directly and not just as a result of inflammation.
“Our study has highlighted that the two viruses appear to affect heart tissue very differently, something we want to understand better in larger cohort studies.
“What we have shown categorically is that COVID is not ‘like the flu.’
“This study helps us understand how COVID-19 affects this heart, and this is the first step in figuring out what treatments might be best to repair this heart.”
The international team included UQ’s Dr Fernando Guimaraes, Professor Gabrielle Belz and Dr Kirsty Short, Ning Liu and researchers from WEHI, as well as Prince Charles Hospital’s Critical Care Research Group.
The research was published in Immunology.
Media: Dr Arutha Kulasinghe, Arutha.kulasinghe@uq.edu.au, 0432 645 624; Professor John Fraser, j.fraser@uq.edu.au; UQ Communications, med.media@uq.edu.au+61 (0)436 368 746.