Researchers reported that the increased long-term risk of acute cardiovascular complications associated with COVID-19 is linked to SARS-CoV-2 infecting coronary vessels and inducing the formation of plaques.
By Dr. Chinta SidharthanOct 3 2023Reviewed by Danielle Ellis, B.Sc. In a recent study published in the journal Nature Cardiovascular Research, researchers reported that the increased long-term risk of acute cardiovascular complications associated with coronavirus disease 2019 is linked to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infecting coronary vessels and inducing the formation of plaques.
While strokes and AMIs have been observed in the case of several respiratory infections, such as those involving influenza virus, the risk of stroke is more than seven-fold higher for COVID-19 patients. Of the eight patients included in the study, three were diagnosed with acute myocardial ischemia during the hospitalization, one experienced a stroke, and the autopsy results of four patients revealed coronary stenosis. Coronary artery sections from autopsy samples were hematoxylin and eosin stained and classified as pathological intimal thickening with macrophage infiltration, fibrocalcific plaque, adaptive intimal thickening, and fibroatheroma by a cardiovascular pathologist.
Nuclear segmentation was also used to quantify the infiltration of the perivascular fat and coronary artery wall with RNAscope probes. Further RNAscope analyses using single-cell RNA sequencing datasets of mice and humans were used to detect the potential spread of SARS-CoV-2 to other cells, especially vascular smooth muscle cells.
Furthermore, foam cells were more susceptible to getting infected with SARS-CoV-2 than the other macrophage types, and the infection was dependent on the neuropilin-1 receptor. The SARS-CoV-2 infection of human vascular carotid explants conducted ex-vivo also showed that the virus stimulated strong inflammatory responses in foam cells and macrophages that were pro-atherogenic. This is believed to exacerbate ischemic cardiovascular complications in severe COVID-19 cases.
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