HTLV-1 / XMRV Conference starts today!

[VillageLife]

Lots of talks on XMRV.

http://htlv2011.regaweb.med.kuleuven.be/sites/default/files/program-20110526.pdf

 

[eric_s]

Yes... any reports on Silverman's position are very welcome... any other news regarding XMRV too, of course.

 

[alex3619]

Lots of talks on XMRV.

http://htlv2011.regaweb.med.kuleuven.be/sites/default/files/program-20110526.pdf

Hi VillageLife, it looks like the XMRV talks are Monday afternoon, but have been anticipated for some time by some of us. Bye, Alex

Monday, June 6, 2011
Endogenous retroviruses, Foamy viruses and XMRV
Chairs: William Switzer and Robert Silverman
13:30 13:40: State of the art and summary of session: William Switzer
13:40 14:00 Human infection or lab artifact: will the real XMRV please stand up?
Robert Silverman
14:05 14:15 Multi-laboratory evaluations of XMRV nucleic acid detection assays
Graham Simmons
14:20 14:30 Prevalence of XMRV in Blood donors, HTLV and HIV Cohorts Abbott
Xiaoxing Qiu
14:35 14:45 Development of XMRV Producing B Cell Lines from Lymphomas from Patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Francis Ruscetti
14:50 15:00 Regulation of Foamy Virus Protease Activity by Viral RNA
Birgitta Whrl
15:05 15:15 Preferential expression of human endogenous retrovirus K (HERV K/HML 2) type 1 in tumor cells
Camila Romano
15:20 15:30 Independent evolution of intracellular transposons from exogenous IAP related retroviruses in a broad range of mammalian species
Gkikas Magiorkinis

 

[Esther12]

Yes... any reports on Silverman's position are very welcome... any other news regarding XMRV too, of course.

Yeah - I really want to hear from the prostate cancer guys. And Ruscetti.

So far Mikovits has been looking pretty isolated. Is that going to change?

 

[eric_s]

Isolated in what sense? Within the people not "believing" the contamination line i don't know if she's so isolated. Maybe at the moment it's not always the same what we hear through the media and what researchers really think.

 

[Gemini]

it looks like the XMRV talks are Monday afternoon, but have been anticipated for some time by some of us. Bye, Alex

3 additional XMRV talks Tuesday afternoon--Switzer, Hanson and Villinger...

 

[ukxmrv]

Esther, I bet Dr Mikovits is having a great time and talking to loads of other useful doctors. She always looks popular at other conferences and had people wanting to talk to her. With Rushetti and Silverman there she's got allies.

p.s. I was glad to see that this guy was there. He is the one who "poked his head over the parapet" and commenting on how the genetic diversity of XMRV could be explained by one common vector

15:20 15:30 Independent evolution of intracellular transposons from exogenous IAP related retroviruses in a broad range of mammalian species
Gkikas Magiorkinis

 

[Esther12]

By 'isoloated' I meant that she's the only scientist who still seems to be publicly defending the XMRV/CFS link. We've not really heard proper replies from Singh/Silverman/etc about the recombination/contamination thing as it applies to their PC work either.

 

[ukxmrv]

I wonder if that is a question of personal style, Esther? Times and manners are changing. Ideas of professional conduct are changing. People want to have more things out in the open and discussed that were hidden years ago. We no longer accept that doctors would lie about patients having cancer or expect them to die quietly without saying things.

It may be, that, Dr Mikovits had a real grounding in the politics of CFS and decided that it would be best for everything to be as transparent as possible and out in the open.

Dr's S/S may not be interested in CFS politics or even brave enough to enter the fray. I just don't know.

As a woman I'm really proud of Dr Mikovits. We hoped that when more women entered medicine that they would change it for us. I like her outspokenness and determined spirit. Maybe she just works best that way.

 

[currer]

Isolated in what sense? Within the people not "believing" the contamination line i don't know if she's so isolated. Maybe at the moment it's not always the same what we hear through the media and what researchers really think.

I think there could well be two narratives going on here, one for the public, and one for the researchers.

 

[liquid sky]

Any way to listen in? Anyone able to attend and report back?

 

[Jemal]

Here are the XMRV relevant abstracts:

Restricted infection of xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus in human lymphoid tissue
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/pdf/1742-4690-8-s1-a208.pdf

Absence of xenotropic murine leukaemia virus-related virus in Danish patients with multiple sclerosis
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/pdf/1742-4690-8-s1-a213.pdf

Heme oxygenase-1 activation inhibits XMRV pathogenesis and carcinogenesis in prostate cancer cells
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/pdf/1742-4690-8-s1-a218.pdf

XMRV replicates preferentially in mucosal sites in vivo: Relevance to XMRV transmission?
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/pdf/1742-4690-8-s1-a219.pdf

A prototype RT-PCR assay for detection of XMRV in multiple human sample types
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/pdf/1742-4690-8-s1-a220.pdf

Immune correlates of XMRV infection (Lombardi, Mikovits, etc)
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/pdf/1742-4690-8-s1-a221.pdf

Prevalence of XMRV in blood donors, HTLV and HIV cohorts
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/pdf/1742-4690-8-s1-a222.pdf

The effects of XMRV gene expression on the mouse prostate
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/pdf/1742-4690-8-s1-a223.pdf

XMRV: usage of receptors and potential co-receptors
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/pdf/1742-4690-8-s1-a224.pdf

Cell line tropism and replication of XMRV
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/pdf/1742-4690-8-s1-a225.pdf

Structure of the xenotropic murine leukaemia virus-related virus matrix protein
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/pdf/1742-4690-8-s1-a227.pdf

Development of XMRV producing B Cell lines from lymphomas from patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (Ruscetti, Mikovits and others)
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/pdf/1742-4690-8-s1-a230.pdf

Multi-laboratory evaluations of XMRV nucleic acid (BWG report)
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/pdf/1742-4690-8-s1-a231.pdf

Serologic and PCR testing of persons with chronic fatigue syndrome in the United States shows no association with xenotropic or polytropic murine leukemia virus-related virus
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/pdf/1742-4690-8-s1-a232.pdf

XMRV infection in human diseases
Otto Erlwein , Mark J Robinson, Steve Kaye, Myra O McClure, Marjorie M Walker, Anup Patel, Wun-Jae Kim, Mongkol Uiprasertkul, Ganesh Gopalakrishnan, Takahiro Kimura and Kikkeri Naresh
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/8/S1/A238

Murine leukemia viruses (MuLV) and Xenotropic MuLV-related viruses exhibit inter-tropic complex recombination patterns
Mattia CF Prosperi , William M Switzer, Walid Heneine and Marco Salemi
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/8/S1/A235

Detection of MLV-like gag sequences in blood samples from a New York state CFS cohort
Maureen R Hanson , Li L Lee, Lin Lin, David E Bell, David Ruppert and David S Bell
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/8/S1/A234

Human infection or lab artifact: will the real XMRV please stand up? (Silverman)
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/8/S1/A241

 

[eric_s]

Thanks, Jemal. It's a shame there's nothing by Silverman in this list. But probably there is more than enough other interesting material, from what i've seen. But i leave it to "the smart people", like Dr. Bell does

 

[Jemal]

Thanks, Jemal. It's a shame there's nothing by Silverman in this list. But probably there is more than enough other interesting material, from what i've seen. But i leave it to "the smart people", like Dr. Bell does

Silverman will present tomorrow I think, his abstract hasn't been published yet. It will be 241 in the list I think, so there's more XMRV stuff coming!

 

[alex3619]

Hi Silverman was last author of one of the papers on XMRV and mucosa. The evidence is growing that XMRV is sexually transmissible. Another of these abstracts lists a new drug for treating XMRV, which is not an antiviral. Finally, and this could be huge despite sounding minor, the range of cell types XMRV can infect might be larger than expected - it is not limited to the XPR1 cell surface receptor. I await more info from the actual presentations with interest. Bye, Alex

 

[Daffodil]

geez...more cell types infected? new drug?? woah.

i called wpi on thurs....dr. mikovits was in NYC and then headed to belgium....looks like lots going on behind the scenes!


its all over the net that dr. beiger's study is going to be positive..so why worry?

 

[Bob]

Read this and see if you still have doubts about XMRV:

Development of XMRV producing B Cell lines from lymphomas from patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Francis Ruscetti, Vincent C Lombardi, Michael Snyderman, Dan Bertolette, Kathryn S Jones, Judy A Mikovits.
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/pdf/1742-4690-8-s1-a230.pdf


And here's more evidence that XMRV is a human virus:

Restricted infection of xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus in human lymphoid tissue
Marta Curriu, Jorge Carrillo, Marta Massanella, Elisabet Garcia, Bonaventura Clotet, Julian Blanco, Cecilia Cabrera.
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/pdf/1742-4690-8-s1-a208.pdf

 

[Bob]

Thanks very much for the handy list Jemal

 

[currer]

The lymphoma paper is quite dramatic, isnt it?
I remember this was the abstract for the NYAS talk JM gave.

I'm not sure how to interpret the lymphoid tissue one. Am I correct in thinking that there were no antibodies to XMRV env detected? Do you think the lack of immune activation would show XMRV to be more of a threat? Precisely because the body does not react to it as such?
I suppose this study is fairly limited in scope. Just tonsilar tissue over a fairly limited time (14 days?) may not be enough to gauge how the body as a whole would respond.

 

[WillowJ]

its all over the net that dr. beiger's study is going to be positive..so why worry?

Singh's was supposed to be positive, too, and then she found an alternate explanation for her results. We can hope for a positive study, but as they saying goes, we might not want to "count our chickens before they hatch" or before they publish, as the case may be.