Cell-based blood biomarkers for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/ Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, by Daniel Missailidis, Oana Sanislav, Claire Y Allan, Sarah J Annesley, Paul R Fisher in Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2020, 21(3), 1142; [doi.org/10.3390/ijms21031142]
Research abstract:
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) is a devastating illness whose biomedical basis is now beginning to be elucidated. We reported previously that, after recovery from frozen storage, lymphocytes (peripheral blood monocytic cells, PBMCs) from ME/CFS patients die faster in culture medium than those from healthy controls.
We also found that lymphoblastoid cell lines (lymphoblasts) derived from these PBMCs exhibit multiple abnormalities in mitochondrial respiratory function and signalling activity by the cellular stress-sensing kinase TORC1. These differences were correlated with disease severity, as measured by the Richardson and Lidbury Weighted Standing Test.
The clarity of the differences between these cells derived from ME/CFS patient blood and those from healthy controls suggested that they may provide useful biomarkers for ME/CFS.
Here we report a preliminary investigation into that possibility using a variety of analytical classification tools, including linear discriminant analysis, logistic regression and Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. We found that results from three different tests, lymphocyte death rate, mitochondrial respiratory function and TORC1 activity could each individually serve as biomarker with better than 90% sensitivity but only modest specificity vis a vis healthy controls.
However, in combination they provided a cell-based biomarker with sensitivity and specificity approaching 100% in our sample. This level of sensitivity and specificity was almost equalled by a suggested protocol in which the frozen lymphocyte death rate was used as a highly sensitive test to triage positive samples to the more time consuming and expensive tests measuring lymphoblast respiratory function and TORC1 activity. This protocol provides a promising biomarker that could assist in more rapid and accurate diagnosis of ME/CFS.
This is interesting, but when can you find something to help symptoms of ME be less, like giving us something to have more energy? I think sleep is a very important problem with ME patients.
Yes, we are all looking for the cure! LOL. Different things help different people, but most find it helpful to identify the key activities, allergies, foods etc. that aggravate symptoms, and then pace activities and avoid other triggers. Until the cure appears that would seem to be the best way to manage the condition. Jan
I love you. Thanks. And thanks I love you researchers.
Thanks. Sufferer from USA here. Hoping to find a biomarker that will help prove the case for those of us needing to pursue Social Security Disability. They are always skeptical and an agreed upon biomarker would erase all doubt.