This record contains raw data related to the article “Presence of SARS-CoV-2 nucleoprotein in cardiac tissues of donors negative to COVID-19 molecular tests” Abstract Background: COVID-19 outbreak caused detrimental effects on essential medical services as organ and tissue donation. Lombardy, one of the most active Italian region in organ/tissue procurement, has been strongly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. To date, data concerning the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission after tissue transplantation are controversial. Here we aim to evaluate the presence/absence of SARS-CoV-2 in different cardiac tissues eligible for transplantation obtained from Lombard donors. Methods and Results: We used cardiovascular tissues from eight donors potentially suitable for pulmonary valve transplantation. All donor subjects involved in the study were negative for the SARS-CoV-2 RNA molecular tests (qRT-PCR and chip-based digital PCR) in NPS and/or BAL. None of the 8 donors included in this study revealed viral genome SARS-CoV-2 presence. However, the evaluation of protein content of pulmonary vein wall (PVW) tissue revealed in all donors variable levels of SARS-CoV-2 nucleoprotein signal. Conclusion: Our study demonstrated for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, that, viral nucleoprotein but not viral RNA was present in the tissue bank examined specimens, suggesting caution and in-depth investigations on implantable tissue specimens collected during COVID-19 pandemic period.

This work was supported by Italian Ministry of Health (RC-2019-CA1E-2755807; RC-2020-MPP-COVID3-2762326) and Fondazione Gigi e Pupa Ferrari ONLUS (FPF-14).