ACC: Evidence of QT interval prolongation in COVID-19 patients treated with hydroxychloroquine

Background: The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), an acute respiratory infectious disease caused by a new type of coronavirus infection, still lacks effective therapeutic drugs.
Among the candidate drugs for the treatment of new coronary pneumonia, old drugs are newly used.
is the mainstream strategy
.
At one time, experts and scholars recommended hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) as an emergency treatment option for COVID-19

Hydroxychloroquine has been used as a traditional antimalarial and antirheumatic drug for about 70 years.
Studies have found that this drug has broad-spectrum antiviral activity, especially against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV).
The infection has a potential preventive effect, and it has been confirmed to have anti-SARSCoV activity in vitro, and the new coronary pneumonia is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus
2 (SARS-CoV-2), suggesting that hydroxyl Chloroquine has the advantages of both prevention and treatment for this type of coronavirus infection
.

Methods: HEK293 cell line stably expressing hERG-WT channel ( hERG-HEK transiently expressing hERG-p.
Y652A or hERG-p.
F656A mutant) and HEK293 cells were treated with HCQ

Conclusions: We conclude that HCQ induces QTc prolongation by reducing mature hERG channel expression and I_hERG by enhancing channel degradation
.
HCQ also interacts with the canonical hERG binding site involving residues Tyr652 and Phe656