Changes in Gut and Plasma Microbiome following Exercise Challenge in ME/CFS

[PeeWee]

I'm sure this is a rookie question, but does the full published report include details of results broken down by participant? There were just 20 participants, 4 points of measurement for each. If the detailed data isn't published, why not? This seems to promise much, yet deliver little from which conclusions can be drawn, even by other specialists in the field - beyond maybe the conclusion that more funding should be made available to the research team for further research.

Surely research funders would require the detailed data and far more clarity than appears to have been presented so far?

 

[MeSci]

I'm sure this is a rookie question, but does the full published report include details of results broken down by participant? There were just 20 participants, 4 points of measurement for each. If the detailed data isn't published, why not? This seems to promise much, yet deliver little from which conclusions can be drawn, even by other specialists in the field - beyond maybe the conclusion that more funding should be made available to the research team for further research.

Surely research funders would require the detailed data and far more clarity than appears to have been presented so far?

I don't know for sure how such things work, but could it be that the authors intend to publish additional findings in later papers? I have often noticed that several papers are published from the same study, maybe (cynical hat on) to create a more impressive-looking portfolio?

 

[M Paine]

PLOSone, and other science publications ultimately have control over what data is presented and made available. Certainly the researchers have input and control also, but there is a limitation to what a publisher will include in a journal. In the case of print journals, there are constraints around limiting word count etc. In the case of researchers, they have a responsibility to keep sequence data confidential where appropriate to patients.

Anyhow, researchers can always approach the authors, or access the raw sequence data from NCBI. In this paper it mentions the following.

Data Availability: All sequences and quality scores were deposited into the NCBI Short Read Archive under project accession number PRJNA302040. Additional data are available from the PI Sanjay K. Shukla, Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation, upon request for researchers who meet the criteria for access to confidential data: [CONTACT INFORMATION: Sanjay K. Shukla, PhD, Research Scientist, Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation].

The NCBI SRA is a database of sequence data accessible by researchers...

Sequence Read Archive (SRA) makes biological sequence data available to the research community to enhance reproducibility and allow for new discoveries by comparing data sets. The SRA stores raw sequencing data and alignment information from high-throughput sequencing platforms, including Roche 454 GS System®, Illumina Genome Analyzer®, Applied Biosystems SOLiD System®, Helicos Heliscope®, Complete Genomics®, and Pacific Biosciences SMRT®.

 

[Dolphin]

Post-exertion Malaise

Table 3. For a complete detailed analysis of all symptoms pre- and post-exercise challenge please see Meyer et al [18]. For the doubly-multivariate repeated measures MANOVA, we compared symptom changes for fatigue (Fatigue VAS), pain (MPQ total) and confusion (POMS Confusion subscale) at three points post-exercise (immediate, 48-hrs, and 72-hrs). Results indicated a significant main effect of Time [Wilks’ Λ = 0.408; F(6,68) = 6.416; p = 0.000] and a significant Group x Time interaction [Wilks’ Λ = 0.611; F(6,68) = 3.163; p = 0.009], showing that symptoms were changing from pre- to post-exercise and that these changes were different between ME/CFS and control patients. Effect size calculations showed that ME/CFS patients had large changes in their symptoms of pain, fatigue, and confusion at various times post-exercise compared to controls.

 

[Dolphin]

Changes in average relative abundances of bacterial taxa in stool samples were observed following maximal exercise testing and these changes were different in ME/CFS patients and healthy controls. The average relative abundance of 7 out of 9 major taxa increased in the stool in patients from baseline to 72 hours post-exercise compared to an increase in only 2 of the 9 major phyla/genera in healthy controls (p = 0.005) (Fig 1).

Looking at figure 1, should that say six rather than seven increases?