According to the study, persons who have COVID-19 infection have a markedly increased chance of experiencing heart muscle inflammation, irregular heart rhythms, blood clots, stroke, heart attacks, and heart failure for at least a year following infection.
Washington: According to research done on fruit flies and mice, a medicine created by the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) may be able to cure the cardiac damage.
The virus that causes COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, has a particular protein that harms heart cells, according to University of Maryland researchers. The harmful effects of that protein on the heart were then reversed using the medication known as 2DG.
In collaboration with DRDO, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories developed the oral medicine 2DG. The SARS-CoV-2 virus relies on the breakdown of glucose during glycolysis for energy. The drug inhibits glycolysis and prevents the virus from proliferating.
The study found that for at least a year after infection, persons with COVID-19 infection had a significantly increased risk of developing heart muscle inflammation, abnormal heart rhythms, blood clots, stroke, heart attacks, and heart failure.
The specialists, who are from the University of Maryland in Baltimore, United States, then reversed the detrimental effects of the SARS-CoV-2 viral protein on the heart.
Senior scientist Zhe Han asserts that “our research shows that distinct SARS-CoV-2 proteins can each cause significant injury to various tissues in the body, comparable to what has been shown for other viruses like HIV and Zika.”
Their findings were published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications Biology and were based on studies using fruit flies and mouse heart cells.
The study found that even though researchers from all around the world quickly created vaccinations and drugs to lower the severity of COVID-19 disease, these treatments could not shield the even a small infection from harm that could be done to the heart or other organs.
We may test medications to determine if any can undo the harm by identifying these processes of injury in each tissue. Those medications that show promise can then undergo additional testing in clinical research studies,” said Han.
The most dangerous SARS-CoV-2 proteins were identified by Han and his team in studies conducted with fruit flies and human cells last year. According to the study, they discovered that the medicine “Selinexor” lowered the toxicity of one of these proteins but not the other protein, known as Nsp6.
The SARS-CoV-2 protein Nsp6 was shown to be the one that most severely harmed the fly heart in their most recent experiment.
According to the paper, the researchers then learned that the Nsp6 protein controlled the fruit fly heart cells to initiate the glycolysis process, which enables cells to burn the sugar glucose for energy. Normally, the energy source for cardiac cells is fatty acids, but during heart failure, when these cells try to repair the damaged tissue, they switch to sugar metabolism.
The Nsp6 protein, which disturbs the mitochondria, the centre of the cell that produces energy from sugar metabolism, was also found to have extra negative effects by the researchers.
The scientists next prevented the metabolism of sugar in fruit flies and mouse heart cells by administering the drug 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2DG).
The scientists next prevented the metabolism of sugar in fruit flies and mouse heart cells by administering the drug 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2DG).
Mark T. Gladwin, Vice President for Medical Affairs at University of Maryland, stated that “too many Americans who have recovered from COVID wind up with serious heart issues weeks or months later. We need to uncover the basic reasons why this is happening.”
Thanks to this research that explains the pathways of the Nsp6 protein, we can better the drugs we target for future investigation with the ultimate goal of repairing further heart damage in these patients.
Study: Indian Drug Can Treat Heart Damage Resulting from Covid Protein
