• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of, and finding treatments for, complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia, long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

Komaroff & Huber (Feb 2013): Human Endogenous Retrovirus-K18 Superantigen Expression & HHV-6 & HHV-7

Bob

Senior Member
Messages
16,455
Location
England (south coast)
This is from earlier in the year (Feb 2013) but I don't remember seeing it, and I can't find it on the forum.

The results are negative.

Human Endogenous Retrovirus-K18 Superantigen Expression and Human Herpesvirus-6 and Human Herpesvirus-7 Viral Loads in Chronic Fatigue Patients
Brendan Oakes, Matthias Hoagland-Henefield, Anthony L. Komaroff, Jessica L. Erickson, and Brigitte T. Huber

Clin Infect Dis. (2013) 56 (10): 1394-1400.
doi: 10.1093/cid/cit086
First published online: February 13, 2013

http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/56/10/1394.short


Results. HERV-K18 env transcripts were not significantly different between healthy control subjects and CFS patients. Also, HERV-K18 env transcripts did not correlate with HHV-6 viral copy number or HHV-7 viral copy number in either PBMCs or saliva. HHV-6 viral copy number and HHV-7 viral copy number in both PBMCs and saliva were not significantly different between healthy control subjects and CFS patients. HERV-K18 env transcripts, HHV-6 viral copy number, and HHV-7 viral copy number did not correlate with CFS symptom severity.

Conclusions. We fail to demonstrate a difference in HERV-K18 env transcripts, HHV-6 viral copy number, and HHV-7 viral copy number between CFS patients and healthy controls. Our data do not support the hypothesis of reactivation of HHV-6 or HHV-7 in CFS.