sometexan84
Senior Member
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Big news recently (Feb 2020) for anyone w/ EBV, and possibly HHV-6. Good News and Bad News.
Good News - The cause of fatigue from EBV has been identified. Also, there are biomarkers for testing. And these biomarkers likely cover more than just EBV in Chronic Fatigue.
Bad News - Biomarkers for testing have not yet been set up due to interruption from COVID, despite how simple the testing process is.
Here are the links. I've gone through them extensively and will add bullet summaries below the links, along w/ an email response from those that made the discovery.
An Isolated Complex V Inefficiency and Dysregulated Mitochondrial Function in Immortalized Lymphocytes from ME/CFS Patients
Cell-Based Blood Biomarkers for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
As you can see, there are 2 articles. The 2nd one they published promptly after the first to show how it can be tested and diagnosed.
Personal Notes I took for my own reference:
Additional Notes (for you guys):
Good News - The cause of fatigue from EBV has been identified. Also, there are biomarkers for testing. And these biomarkers likely cover more than just EBV in Chronic Fatigue.
Bad News - Biomarkers for testing have not yet been set up due to interruption from COVID, despite how simple the testing process is.
Here are the links. I've gone through them extensively and will add bullet summaries below the links, along w/ an email response from those that made the discovery.
An Isolated Complex V Inefficiency and Dysregulated Mitochondrial Function in Immortalized Lymphocytes from ME/CFS Patients
Cell-Based Blood Biomarkers for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
As you can see, there are 2 articles. The 2nd one they published promptly after the first to show how it can be tested and diagnosed.
Personal Notes I took for my own reference:
- Mitochondria Dysfunction - Complex V Deficiency “Cellular Chronic Fatigue”
- There are (5) protein Complexes that are used for converting oxygen and glucose into energy w/in mitochondria (I, II, III, IV, and V)
- These Complexes aid in this energy conversion, resulting in the production of ATP (adenosine triphosphate)
- New study found that “As a proportion of the basal oxygen consumption rate (OCR), the rate of ATP synthesis by Complex V was significantly reduced in ME/CFS lymphoblasts”
- The above study used EBV infected cells
- It found that CFS patients DO exhibit a mitochondrial deficiency in ATP generation
- The deficiency is specifically from Complex V rather than a generalized reduction in all mitochondrial functions
- ATP levels stay normal, despite the deficiency of ATP synthesis.
- SAME GROUP OF AUSTRALIANS that did the first study, promptly had a follow up ready, showing biomarkers.
- They found 3 biomarkers, which together are extremely accurate:
- 1) lymphocyte death rate
- 2) mitochondrial respiratory function
- 3) TORC1 activity
Additional Notes (for you guys):
- The difference in this study is that they found what other people couldn't. Lots of recent studies found this and that about possible Mito dysfunction, but couldn't figure it out. They finally did here, with the discovery of one small part of the energy production process in mitochondria, Complex V.
- Even though they did this w/ EBV infected cells, I have a feeling the specific HHV-6 dysfunction will be found and confirmed now very soon (if it hasn't been already).
- Similarly, I think the diagnostic biomarker testing is likely to apply to HHV-6, and possibly other non-EBV CFS conditions.
- This discovery proves those with persistent EBV infections have fatigue and energy depletion from mitochondrial dysfunction.
- This finding was very tricky to find in other studies, largely in part because ATP levels stay normal. Our bodies are apparently good at compensating, which makes it difficult for scientists to get to the root.
- The main point of discovery was seen by ATP as % of basal oxygen consumption rate (OCR). So, like (ATP x 100) / basal OCR
- This means that multiple recent studies are correct, even though some talk about different things that are causing fatigue and energy suck. So like, this mito dysfunction is a direct cause of energy loss. But the mito dysfunction here, would also validate other studies talking about automonic dysfunction and how that causes fatigue.
- The 2nd paper talks about the biomarkers and they seem to be extremely accurate
- 1) lymphocyte death rate
- 2) mitochondrial respiratory function
- 3) TORC1 activity
- I haven't looked a lot into the 2nd or 3rd one. But the first one, lymphocyte death rate, involves freezing your cells. Then seeing how fast the cells die in culture. Or rather, how many (%) cells dies w/in 48 hrs.
Thanks for getting in touch and for your kind comments about our work. The cell death assay we used is widely used in a research setting but requires skilled operators. Prior to Covid-19 we were planning this year to determine which of a large number of different cell death assays would be more applicable to measuring the lymphocyte death rates for ME/CFS tests in a clinical setting. Unfortunately our lab has been pretty much closed and access to patients blocked since March because of Covid-19. It's frustrating of course, because we would like to be able to get this out to patients as soon as practicable, as we think there is a great need.
To my knowledge we are the only people who have done this assay in relation to ME/CFS, so it is not clinically available nor clinically standardized and validated across different labs yet. I am also not aware of it being done routinely in pathology labs for other clinical tests....so at the moment I don't think there is anywhere I could recommend.
I am sorry I can't help more at this time.
Best wishes,
Paul.
Emeritus Professor of Microbiology,
La Trobe University,
VIC 3086,
AUSTRALIA.
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