Hutan
Senior Member
- Messages
- 1,099
- Location
- New Zealand
FWIW re intracellular infections
There was a reasonable Australian study
http://qjmed.oxfordjournals.org/content/qjmed/101/4/269.full.pdf
on rickettsial infection in people with 'chronic illness including fatigue'. It would be good to see a followup study of this in an ME/CFS population elsewhere.
But Rickettsias in B cells??? Ebola, Ross River fever??
Rickettsia ..... Being obligate intracellular parasites, the Rickettsia survival depends on entry, growth, and replication within the cytoplasm of eukaryotic host cells (typically endothelial cells).
There was a reasonable Australian study
http://qjmed.oxfordjournals.org/content/qjmed/101/4/269.full.pdf
on rickettsial infection in people with 'chronic illness including fatigue'. It would be good to see a followup study of this in an ME/CFS population elsewhere.
Markers of exposure to spotted fever rickettsiae in patients with chronic illness, including fatigue, in two Australian populations
N. UNSWORTH1, S. GRAVES1, C. NGUYEN1, G. KEMP2, J. GRAHAM3 and J. STENOS1
From the 1Australian Rickettsial Reference Laboratory, Barwon Biomedical Research, Geelong, 2The Burke Road Medical Centre, Camberwell, and 3The School of Medicine, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia
Results: Of the Melbourne patient cohort, 14/526 (3%) were real-time PCR positive for rickettsial DNA compared to none of the 400 control patients (P < 0.001). Of these 14 patients, Rickettsia honei strain ‘marmionii’ was detected in 5 and isolated from 2. Rickettsaemia was seasonal, with more in winter (8/145; P < 0.03) and less in spring (0/143; P < 0.03). Positive rickettsial serology titres of 51:256 were seen in 206 (39%) patients. Of the Adelaide patient cohort, 238/581 (41%) had positive rickettsial antibodies titres. Of the 34 control sera, 5 (15%) were serologically positive (P < 0.002). Both Melbourne and Adelaide patient cohorts had significantly higher seroposi- tivity than the Newcastle control cohort (3/399; P < 0.0001).
Conclusions: In patients with chronic illness, rick- ettsial DNA in peripheral blood and/or rickettsial seropositivity may represent exposure to rickettsiae or underlying rickettsial diseases. It is not known whether the presence of rickettsiae is causally related to the patients’ chronic illnesses, or reactivation of a latent rickettsial infection.
But Rickettsias in B cells??? Ebola, Ross River fever??