Zhu, J.Y., Wang, G., Huang, X., Lee, H., Lee, J.G., Yang, P., van de Leemput, J., Huang, W., Kane, M.A., Yang, P., Han, Z. (2022). SARS-CoV-2 Nsp6 damages Drosophila heart and mouse cardiomyocytes through MGA/MAX complex-mediated increased glycolysis.  Commun. Biol. 5(1): 1039.

FBrf0254634

Research paper

SARS-CoV-2 infection causes COVID-19, a severe acute respiratory disease associated with cardiovascular complications including long-term outcomes. The presence of virus in cardiac tissue of patients with COVID-19 suggests this is a direct, rather than secondary, effect of infection. Here, by expressing individual SARS-CoV-2 proteins in the Drosophila heart, we demonstrate interaction of virus Nsp6 with host proteins of the MGA/MAX complex (MGA, PCGF6 and TFDP1). Complementing transcriptomic data from the fly heart reveal that this interaction blocks the antagonistic MGA/MAX complex, which shifts the balance towards MYC/MAX and activates glycolysis-with similar findings in mouse cardiomyocytes. Further, the Nsp6-induced glycolysis disrupts cardiac mitochondrial function, known to increase reactive oxygen species (ROS) in heart failure; this could explain COVID-19-associated cardiac pathology. Inhibiting the glycolysis pathway by 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2DG) treatment attenuates the Nsp6-induced cardiac phenotype in flies and mice. These findings point to glycolysis as a potential pharmacological target for treating COVID-19-associated heart failure.

PMC9523645 (PMC) (EuropePMC)