AUTHOR=Dariolli Rafael , Campana Chiara , Gutierrez Amy , Sobie Eric A. 

TITLE=In vitro and In silico Models to Study SARS-CoV-2 Infection: Integrating Experimental and Computational Tools to Mimic “COVID-19 Cardiomyocyte”

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Physiology

VOLUME=Volume 12 - 2021

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/physiology/articles/10.3389/fphys.2021.624185

DOI=10.3389/fphys.2021.624185

ISSN=1664-042X

ABSTRACT=The fast dissemination of SARS-CoV-2 has made COVID-19 disease a social, economic and health burden. Despite the efforts to overcome the outbreak, many questions remain unanswered about COVID-19 mechanisms of infection and progression. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) infection can affect several organs in the body including the heart, which can result in thromboembolism, myocardial injuries, acute coronary syndromes, and arrhythmias. Numerous cardiac adverse events, from cardiomyocyte death to secondary effects caused by exaggerated immunological response against the virus, have been clinically reported. In addition to the disease itself, repurposing of treatments by using “off label” drugs can also contribute to cardiotoxicity. Over the past several decades, animal models and more recently, stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes have been proposed for studying diseases and testing treatments in vitro. In addition, in silico models including those that can be used to study between-subject variability have been widely used for disease and drug studies. In these models, several characteristics such as gender, electrolyte imbalance, and comorbidities can be implemented to study pathophysiology of cardiac diseases and to predict cardiotoxicity of drug treatments. In this Mini Review, we present the state of the art of in vitro and in silico cardiomyocyte modeling and provide a perspective on how to adopt these models to realistically mimic “COVID-19 cardiomyocytes”.