{"doi":"10.1101/2020.08.30.274464","title":"SARS-CoV-2 infects human pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes, impairing electrical and mechanical function","abstract":"Abstract Global health has been threatened by the COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) 1 . Although considered primarily a respiratory infection, many COVID-19 patients also suffer severe cardiovascular disease 2–4 . Improving patient care critically relies on understanding if cardiovascular pathology is caused directly by viral infection of cardiac cells or indirectly via systemic inflammation and/or coagulation abnormalities 3,5–9 . Here we examine the cardiac tropism of SARS-CoV-2 using human pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hPSC-CMs) and three-dimensional engineered heart tissues (3D-EHTs). We observe that hPSC-CMs express the viral receptor ACE2 and other viral processing factors, and that SARS-CoV-2 readily infects and replicates within hPSC-CMs, resulting in rapid cell death. Moreover, infected hPSC-CMs show a progressive impairment in both electrophysiological and contractile properties. Thus, COVID-19-related cardiac symptoms likely result from a direct cardiotoxic effect of SARS-CoV-2. Long-term cardiac complications might be possible sequelae in patients who recover from this illness.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2020,"id":119487,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":19,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9584,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":245056,"name":"Tien-Ying Hsiang","orcid":"0000-0002-4316-4561","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":555208,"name":"Ty Higashi","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":555209,"name":"Akshita Khanna","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":534822,"name":"Hans Reinecke","orcid":"0000-0003-0438-2651","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":555210,"name":"Xiulan Yang","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":554449,"name":"Lil Pabon","orcid":"0000-0003-3095-5011","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":366670,"name":"Nathan J. Sniadecki","orcid":"0000-0001-6960-4492","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":548421,"name":"Alessandro Bertero","orcid":"0000-0002-4919-9087","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":108916,"name":"Michael Gale","orcid":"0000-0002-6332-7436","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":366668,"name":"Charles E. Murry","orcid":"0000-0003-3862-6773","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":554448,"name":"Silvia Marchianò","orcid":"0000-0001-6198-518X","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":39,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:14:08.313144Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}