DeFreitas 1991 Retrovirus/CFS Study

[justinreilly]

thanks starryeyes.
I have had a look at it and it is nowhere near as robust as the science study.i really don,t know how freezing could have killed a lentivirus.I think the CCD used the wrong primers by accident or design.The virus could have been an unusual serotype and a couple of primer sequences out and no cigar was the ccd work published.Do we know anything about

the viral sequence?

FWIW- by all accounts DeFrietas was perfectionistic and extremely diligent; she had a sterling scientific reputation until CDC and NIH destroyed it.

 

[starryeyes]

Thanks for explaining more about the sequencing and the science of CAV Justin and thanks so much for keeping up with this issue.

I think your assessments of the CAA at the time CAV was found make sense and I agree that you're right about what the WPI is doing and probably thinking.

I think your suggestion that the CAA should fund research to look for CAV now is an excellent one. Retrovirology technology has come a long way since 1991. They should do this for us and they could do this for us.

 

[cfs since 1998]

The idea of a still undiscovered retrovirus infecting the human population is rather disturbing to me, regardless of whether or not it is associated with ME/CFS. I really hope someone looks into this.

 

[KnightofZERO]

Dr. Bell is trying to settle this issue by trying to find his old patients, who were the subjects of the DeFreitas study and were positive for the HTLV-2-like virus, and testing them for XMRV. I think if he is able to accomplish this, it will help clarify issues.

This would be really great. It would be of a lot of interest to all of us to see whether there is a correlation between having tested + for Defreitas's "CAV" and testing + for XMRV.

If there are any cell lines growing "CAV" at the present (it was back in 1991, so don't know if anyone would still have materials like that...), then it seems it ought to at least be sequenced.

 

[Bob]

i belive there was a patent filed for in the testing procedures for the Defretias virus.

But surely the WPI would get permission to investigate CAV, from DeFreitias, wouldn't they?
I would have thought that Judy Mikovits would be extremely interested in looking at CAV,
and I don't think I've ever heard her say anything about why she hasn't investigated it.
Has anyone heard her say anything about looking into CAV?

 

[usedtobeperkytina]

I would not be surprised at all to find many cancers and other illnesses, including neurological and even presently classified psychological illnesses, end up being caused by retroviruses.

Medical knowledge of retroviruses is fairly recent. Although retroviruses in animals have been known since 1908, the first human pathogenic retrovirus, HTLV was discovered in 1981. HIV was discovered in 1983. Think of that. The AIDs epidemic was early 1980s. The CFS outbreaks reported to CDC were in mid 1980s.

In the 1970s, only 40 years ago, within my lifetime, Nixon's "war on cancer" failed to find any retrovisuses were causing cancer. Of course, that is incorrect.

So while we speak of being in early stage of research into XMRV, we're only in the toddler stage of understanding human retroviruses in general.

XMRV has some unique properties. It breaks some paradigms. Now, how many other retroviruses are in humans and causing disease but we haven't found the right code to unlock its secrets. It is like these viruses write in invisible ink and researchers have to find the right chemicals to make that invisible ink show up.

Except for CFS, which had clear indications of possible retrovirus cause, the scientist don't have any reason to believe any ink is there. Imagine you get a piece of paper with block dots on it. No understanding. You try to figure out what those dots mean. Why would you think invisible ink was used on the piece of paper? So why would you even work to find the chemical recipe to reveal it. You might be trying to connect the dots, inverting them, turning the paper upside down, doing everything else but thinking invisible ink is on the paper.

So, I will not be surprised if retroviruses are found at the root of many illnesses, since we know very little about human retroviruses and have had to change previously held beliefs about them as recent as eight months ago.

Tina

 

[Overstressed]

You can easily pick up retros in cells if they are replicating by pcr if there are high titres.HTLV titres would be much higher than xmrv because the replication rates of a lentivirus are much faster than a gamma.

Hi Gerwyn, I don't know if I understand you correctly, but HTLV is a delta-virus, mostly shows up in low titres in human. I think, in that sense it takes long time to cause disease. I talked to many retrovirologists, after my infection, and once I mentioned a retrovirus, they all said the same: retrovirus infection symptoms don't show up so early in the course of an infection.

As of today, with the very sensitive tests available, it can be that you have false negatives with HTLV-tests. It's for that reason, a researcher had performed a more sensitive test on me, because of a possible false negative. False negative because of the very low titres of HTLV.

Kind regards,
OS.

 

[Bob]

Hi Tina, you've got some really interesting thoughts on the subject... I agree with you.
If it wasn't for Judy Mikovits, then XMRV probably wouldn't have been discovered in ME patients for many years... All the other scientists still can't find it, even though they've been told that it's there, and how to detect it.
It just shows how complex, sophisticated, cutting edge and intelligent Judy Mikovits' work is.
I wonder if she will go on to find other human retro-viruses now she has the technology and knowledge about how to find hidden retroviruses.

A related area of science that some scientists are looking into is reactivated human endogenous retroviruses, and human endogenous retrovirus particles, and how they may cause diseases such as schizophrenia.
And this area looks even more complex than looking for an exogenous retroviruses like XMRV... I can't imagine how a reactivated, or a partially reactivated, endogenous retrovirus (i.e. retrovirus particles), might be dealt with because they are coded into every cell of our body (i.e. they are incorporated into our DNA).

I still don't understand why the WPI aren't looking into DeFreitas' CAV retrovirus.
Maybe they are, secretly!

I would not be surprised at all to find many cancers and other illnesses, including neurological and even presently classified psychological illnesses, end up being caused by retroviruses.

Medical knowledge of retroviruses is fairly recent. Although retroviruses in animals have been known since 1908, the first human pathogenic retrovirus, HTLV was discovered in 1981. HIV was discovered in 1983. Think of that. The AIDs epidemic was early 1980s. The CFS outbreaks reported to CDC were in mid 1980s.

In the 1970s, only 40 years ago, within my lifetime, Nixon's "war on cancer" failed to find any retrovisuses were causing cancer. Of course, that is incorrect.

So while we speak of being in early stage of research into XMRV, we're only in the toddler stage of understanding human retroviruses in general.

XMRV has some unique properties. It breaks some paradigms. Now, how many other retroviruses are in humans and causing disease but we haven't found the right code to unlock its secrets. It is like these viruses write in invisible ink and researchers have to find the right chemicals to make that invisible ink show up.

Except for CFS, which had clear indications of possible retrovirus cause, the scientist don't have any reason to believe any ink is there. Imagine you get a piece of paper with block dots on it. No understanding. You try to figure out what those dots mean. Why would you think invisible ink was used on the piece of paper? So why would you even work to find the chemical recipe to reveal it. You might be trying to connect the dots, inverting them, turning the paper upside down, doing everything else but thinking invisible ink is on the paper.

So, I will not be surprised if retroviruses are found at the root of many illnesses, since we know very little about human retroviruses and have had to change previously held beliefs about them as recent as eight months ago.

Tina

 

[gu3vara]

Hey, the discussion about endogenous retro made me wonder about something that can appear very naive, but still I'd like to know :

If a person gets an exogenous retrovirus vertically (from one of his parents DNA), would that mean that the retrovirus would be present in every single cell of his body considering the master key had it? Sounds pretty catastrophic!

I don't know much about biology but I certainly hope that's not the case. I'm almost 100% sure my father gave it to me, he had the same kind of symptoms as me for a long time, just not the intense fatigue. Mostly fibro type pain.

If anyone can assure me that those getting xmrv from parents are not totally screwed, would make my day...!

 

[Bob]

Hey, the discussion about endogenous retro made me wonder about something that can appear very naive, but still I'd like to know :

If a person gets an exogenous retrovirus vertically (from one of his parents DNA), would that mean that the retrovirus would be present in every single cell of his body considering the master key had it? Sounds pretty catastrophic!

I don't know much about biology but I certainly hope that's not the case. I'm almost 100% sure my father gave it to me, he had the same kind of symptoms as me for a long time, just not the intense fatigue. Mostly fibro type pain.

If anyone can assure me that those getting xmrv from parents are not totally screwed, would make my day...!

That's not a naive question gu3vara... it's a good question...
Don't worry... the situation is not as bad as you think it might be...
I'll try to explain to the best of my knowledge...

XMRV is an exogenous retrovirus and therefore it isn't permanently coded into our DNA...
As a retrovirus, it's job is to try to code itself into our DNA and this is why we get ill...
Even if we get XMRV from our parents, it isn't from their DNA, but the virus is transmitted directly to us as an infection.

An endogenous virus has managed to get completely coded into our DNA, during the course of evolution... this has happened over the course of human evolutionary history...
My understanding is that there are many human endogenous retro-viruses and they are not usually thought to cause any disease, although there is research into endogenous retroviruses to see if there might be retrovirus sequences, or particles, which might be responsible for some diseases.

So don't worry... XMRV is not coded into your DNA... it's an exogenous retrovirus.

 

[gu3vara]

Thanks so much for the explanation, that's a relief! I was worried that getting a retrovirus vertically would make it behave just like an endogenous one...thank god it's not the case, guess those infected with VIH at birth wouldn't even make it a week if that was the case.

 

[natasa778]

In vivo study on vertical transmission of the HIV-1 gag gene via mouse oocytes.

Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a major public health problem worldwide. This study was performed to explore the feasibility of vertical transmission of human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) gag gene via oocyte. The recombinant plasmid (pIRES2-EGFP-gag) was injected into mouse ovaries to transfect germ cells. Induction of superovulation and then animal mating were performed to collect oocytes and two-cell embryos. Positive FISH signals for HIV-1 gag DNA were detected in the nuclei of oocytes and embryos, and in chromosomes of mature oocytes, indicated integration of the gene into the oocyte genome and gene replication in the embryo. HIV-1 gag cDNA positive bands detected by RT-PCR in oocytes and embryos indicated successful gene transcription, while positive immunofluorescence signals for HIV-1 gag protein indicated successful translation in both oocytes and embryos. The HIV-1 gag gene was transmitted vertically to the next generation via oocytes and it retained its function in replication, transcription and translation following at least one mitotic division in embryos. Gao YS, Huang TH, Wang D, Xie QD, Kang XJ.Curr HIV Res. 2009 Sep;7(5):562-8. PMID: 19754362

 

[gu3vara]

I just read that HIV can't be transmitted genetically, only the positive mother can give it to the baby during pregnancy. A positive father can't give HIV to the baby (assuming the mother don't catch HIV from the father of course).

 

[Bob]

This research is way beyond my understanding of the science...
The 'vertical integration' that this research paper demonstrates - is it possible in the human population with retro-viruses (i.e. HIV)?
And did I confuse 'vertical transmission' with 'endogenous retro-virus' in my previous post?
I have never heard of examples of vertical transmission of HIV due to integrated chromosomes, but I don't have any knowledge in this area...
Is it possible that antiretrovirals would still kill the HIV virus in the example in the research paper that is quoted (i.e. after vertical transmission)?
If so, then would it still be known as an 'endogenous retrovirus'?..
Or does the term 'endogenous' only refer to examples of viruses which have been assimilated into the entire human population's DNA in the course of evolution?
Does anyone know any answers to these questions?
I'm out of my depth here!

(gu3vara - I'm sorry if I mislead you in my previous post - it seems that I didn't know enough about this subject to be able to give you an informed answer)

In vivo study on vertical transmission of the HIV-1 gag gene via mouse oocytes.

Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a major public health problem worldwide. This study was performed to explore the feasibility of vertical transmission of human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) gag gene via oocyte. The recombinant plasmid (pIRES2-EGFP-gag) was injected into mouse ovaries to transfect germ cells. Induction of superovulation and then animal mating were performed to collect oocytes and two-cell embryos. Positive FISH signals for HIV-1 gag DNA were detected in the nuclei of oocytes and embryos, and in chromosomes of mature oocytes, indicated integration of the gene into the oocyte genome and gene replication in the embryo. HIV-1 gag cDNA positive bands detected by RT-PCR in oocytes and embryos indicated successful gene transcription, while positive immunofluorescence signals for HIV-1 gag protein indicated successful translation in both oocytes and embryos. The HIV-1 gag gene was transmitted vertically to the next generation via oocytes and it retained its function in replication, transcription and translation following at least one mitotic division in embryos. Gao YS, Huang TH, Wang D, Xie QD, Kang XJ.Curr HIV Res. 2009 Sep;7(5):562-8. PMID: 19754362

 

[Bob]

I just read that HIV can't be transmitted genetically, only the positive mother can give it to the baby during pregnancy. A positive father can't give HIV to the baby (assuming the mother don't catch HIV from the father of course).

Yes gu3vara, I didn't think that I'd heard about transmission of HIV in this way... I'm sure it would be very big news if it happened... So hopefully we're all safe from that kind of vertical transmission!

 

[gu3vara]

no problem, I sure hope it's not different for XMRV

 

[natasa778]

Or does the term 'endogenous' only refer to examples of viruses which have been assimilated into the entire human population's DNA in the course of evolution?

yes.

btw herpesvirus6 has also been found recently to be transmitted vertically through DNA integration ... there was a thread on that a few months ago, not sure of the thread title hope someone else might know. I believe it was under 'other health news' section. try a search with HSV6 or HHV6 integration as keywords

I just came across this one recently, interesting as they found HIV integrated in kids' DNA although they were all seronegative - no antibodies to HIV, conclusion that the infection was 'hidden', not active, HIV not replicating...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1524729/?tool=pubmed

 

[starryeyes]

Tina wrote: I will not be surprised if retroviruses are found at the root of many illnesses, since we know very little about human retroviruses and have had to change previously held beliefs about them as recent as eight months ago.

What beliefs are you referring to Tina?

 

[gu3vara]

yes.

btw herpesvirus6 has also been found recently to be transmitted vertically through DNA integration ...

Just for clarification, does that mean that every single cell of the baby will be infected by the herpes virus in this case? If so, sounds like a dead sentence if it's the case, all new cells would be infected as well (???)

I certainly miss some basic concepts here, that's probably not that simple. My understanding is that if XMRV ca be vertically transmitted than it would literally behave as an endogenous virus and each cells would be infected.

 

[natasa778]

Just for clarification, does that mean that every single cell of the baby will be infected by the herpes virus in this case? If so, sounds like a dead sentence if it's the case, all new cells would be infected as well (???)

not sure.... in theory it could be 'harmless' if it just sits there doing nothing, and does not interfere with host genes... probably a lot depends on site of integration as well... sorry can't speculate here, hoping Gerwyn or someone could expand on that