Improvement of severe ME/CFS symptoms following surgical treatment of cervical spinal stenosis

Posted on 02/05/2018 by wames

Article abstract:

Improvement of severe myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome symptoms following surgical treatment of cervical spinal stenosis, by Peter C Rowe, Colleen L Marden, Scott Heinlein, Charles C Edwards II in J Transl Med 2018 16: 21 [Published online 02 February 2018]

Background:

Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is a potentially disabling disorder. Little is known about the contributors to severe forms of the illness. We describe three consecutive patients with severe ME/CFS whose symptoms improved after recognition and surgical management of their cervical spinal stenosis.

Methods:

All patients satisfied clinical criteria for ME/CFS and orthostatic intolerance, and were later found to have cervical spinal stenosis. Overall function was assessed before and after surgery using the Karnofsky score and the SF-36 physical function subscale score.

Results:

Neurological findings included > 3+ deep tendon reflexes in 2 of 3, a positive Hoffman sign in 2 of 3, tremor in 2 of 3, and absent gag reflex in 1 of 3. The cervical spine canal diameter in the three patients ranged from 6 to 8.5 mm. One had congenital cervical stenosis with superimposed spondylosis, and two had single- or two-level spondylosis. Anterior cervical disc replacement surgery in two patients and a hybrid anterior cervical disc fusion and disc replacement in the third was associated with a marked improvement in myelopathic symptoms, resolution of lightheadedness and hemodynamic dysfunction, improvement in activity levels, and improvement in global ME/CFS symptoms.

Conclusions:

The prompt post-surgical restoration of more normal function suggests that cervical spine stenosis contributed to the pathogenesis of refractory ME/CFS and orthostatic symptoms. The improvements following surgery emphasize the importance of a careful search for myelopathic examination findings in those with ME/CFS, especially when individuals with severe impairment are not responding to treatment.

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NEID disease? Study suggests neuro, endocrine & immune systems work together to produce ME/CFS

Posted on 02/02/2018 by wames

Simmaron Research blog post, by Cort Johnson, 26 January 2018: NEID Disease? Study Suggests Neuro, Endocrine and Immune Systems Work Together to Produce ME/CFS

 

Bruun Wyller continues to surprise. When last heard from this erstwhile cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) proponent asserted that more research into Epstein-Barr virus in chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) was needed. Now he’s looking at the interaction between the immune and endocrine systems.

The Evolution of a Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) Researcher? CBT Proponent Calls for More Herpesvirus Research

Transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) in adolescent chronic fatigue syndrome Vegard Bruun Wyller, Chinh Bkrong Nguyen, Judith Anita Ludviksen and Tom Eirik Mollnes.  J Transl Med (2017) 15:245

Wyller begins his new study reporting that systemic inflammation is probably present and B-cell functioning is impaired (if modestly) in ME/CFS, but that the picture regarding cytokines is muddier. A meta-analysis of 38 ME/CFS cytokine studies examining 77 cytokines found only one standout – a cytokine called TGF-B. It was consistently elevated in 2/3rds of the studies.

Wyller suggests an unusual neuroimmune connection involving TGF-beta and stress hormones such as cortisol (pictured) may be present

Given its unusual and consistent appearance in cytokine study results, why TGF-B has gotten so little attention in ME/CFS is unclear. The fact that it’s kind of a weird cytokine probably doesn’t help. Secreted by macrophages and some other immune cells, TGF-B can function as both an anti and pro-inflammatory cytokine depending on the situation it’s in.

It’s three forms are involved in a multitude of regulatory processes involving inflammation and immunity.  It does more than participate in the immune system; TGF-B also affects or is affected by the two stress response systems in our bodies – the HPA axis and autonomic nervous system. All that makes TGF-B a complex character indeed.

Take our two stress response systems. During stressful situations increased TGF-B levels appear to be associated with increased levels of cortisol – the main stress hormone of the HPA axis.  An ME/CFS study examining the gene expression of immune cells found an abnormally high expression of genes that interact with the HPA axis and autonomic nervous system. That suggested that a significant immune-hormone component is present. Indeed, ME/CFS has long been characterized as a neuroendocrineimmune (NEID) – a disease that effects all three systems.

In this study Wyller, a Norwegian researcher, again used his own broad definition of ME/CFS to find patients, but this time he did post hoc analyses using the Fukuda and Canadian Consensus criteria to determine if different definitions of ME/CFS made a difference – they didn’t). As always, Wyller studied adolescents – a lot of them (n=120) and 68 controls to produce a very nice sized study. The data analysis took a long time; the data itself was collected from 2010-2012.

TGF-B actually comes in three forms ((TGF‑β1, TGF‑β2 and TGF‑β3). For the first time ever in ME/CFS Wyller tested for all three forms of TGF-B, as well as norepinephrine, epinephrine and cortisol (urine) and c-reactive protein (serum).   He also assessed heart rate variability, and in 29 patients examined their whole blood gene expression.  Questionnaires assessing fatigue, inflammatory symptoms, post-exertional malaise, sleep, mood and anxiety were also given.

Results
Wyller expected TGF-B levels to be higher in his adolescent ME/CFS patients, but to his surprise even using the CCC and Fukuda criterias, they were not. Nor was TGF-B associated with any clinical markers such as fatigue, PEM, sleep problems, etc.

Wyller suggests an unusual neuroimmune connection involving TGF-beta and stress hormones such as cortisol (pictured) may be present
The study was looking like a bust until Wyller dug a little deeper. It turned out that TGF-B levels were associated with increased levels of the stress hormones cortisol, norepinephrine and epinephrine in the ME/CFS patients but not in the healthy controls.

An unusual immune-endocrine interaction was occurring in ME/CFS patients that was not found in the healthy controls. For some reason, TGF-B  levels rose in conjuction with stress hormones in the ME/CFS patients but not in the healthy controls.  All three TGF-B isoform displayed this association.

Plus that association also correlated with symptom severity. Wyller found that the TGF-B-cortisol-autonomic nervous system correlation was strongest in the most fatigued ME/CFS patients.  Less fatigued ME/CFS patients, on the other hand, had much less of this association.

Once again, context appeared to be king in the ME/CFS patients. The levels of TGF-B didn’t matter but the network they were embedded in did. A similar scenario showed up in the huge cytokine study conducted by Dr. Montoya and Mark Davis of Stanford. That study, like Wyller’s, didn’t find high levels of cytokines, but it did find that even normal cytokine levels affected symptoms. That suggested some sort of immune hypersensitivity, perhaps associated with some unusual network functioning, was present.

Now Wyller apparently finds an immune and autonomic nervous sensitivity to TGF-B. It’s not the cytokine levels themselves but the effect they have on stress hormones.  Indeed, Wyller suggested that the primary disease mechanism in ME/CFS is not altered immune production but altered immune control. Somehow the immune system is affecting other systems in unusual ways.

That’s an intriguing idea given what we’ll shortly see from Dr. Klimas, whose intense testing during exercise suggests that exercise induced immune activity trips off autonomic nervous system problems in ME/CFS. Gordon Broderick’s network studies suggest that cytokine levels don’t need to be high to have untoward effects on ME/CFS patients – they simply have to be embedded in an unusual immune network.

Wyller believes a complex neuro-endocrine-immune interaction may be contributing to the fatigue and possibly the EBV issues in ME/CFS.
Dr. Klimas will be trying in a series of small studies to move those systems back to normal this year. (More on that later.)

Wyller’s findings suggest that his “sustained arousal” hypothesis may be correct and that the “sustained arousal” he believes is present in ME/CFS is being triggered by the immune system. His small gene expression study possibly bares this out. Wyller warned about reading too much into the gene expression analysis because of the small sample size (n=29). The analysis found, though, that the TGF-B3 isoform was negatively associated with reduced expression of two B-cell genes (TNFRSF13C and CXCR5).

Wyller suggested that TGF-B3 may be altering the effect that cortisol – the master immune regulator – has on B-cell genes in ME/CFS.  If TGF-B and cortisol combine to smack B-cell genes in ME/CFS, Wyller suggests that could translate into problems reining in Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) – a common trigger in ME/CFS.  Wyller’s earlier gene expression study, in fact, suggested that B-cell problems could be the key to the EBV problems seen in ME/CFS. Now Wyller suggests that these B-cell problems could result from a complex interaction between TGF-B and cortisol.

Wyller’s going to check out that interaction in a study which will determine how effectively the B-cells in ME/CFS patients respond to EBV in the presence of neuroendocrine hormones. If cortisol or other neuroendocrine hormones impair the ability of B-cells to whack EBV in ME/CFS, Wyller may have uncovered one reason why mononucleosis is such a common trigger for ME/CFS.

Mold Connection?
Wyller’s focus on the research literature apparently precluded him from exploring another TGF-B angle. Mold has become a hot if little studied topic in ME/CFS. For over a decade, mold doctor Ritchie Shoemaker has asserted that elevated TGF-B levels play a major role in mold related illnesses.  Instead of B-cells, though, Shoemaker ties TGF-B issues to T cell problems and reduced blood flow in the capillaries, which translate into reduced oxygen uptake and problems with producing energy in the mitochondria – a key theme in ME/CFS.

Shoemaker, interestingly, asserts those blood flow and immune problems mirror what is happening in sepsis. In fact, Shoemaker believes that the chronic inflammatory response syndrome (CIRS) he sees in his patients is a chronic form of sepsis. Over ten years ago ME/CFS specialist Dr. David Bell proposed a chronic form of sepsis exists in ME/CFS as well.

Read about the future research of Simmaron Research

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The International collaborative on fatigue following infection (COFFI)

Posted on 01/31/2018 by wames

Article abstract:

The international collaborative on fatigue following infection (COFFI), by Ben Z Katz, Simon M Collin, Gabrielle Murphy, Rona Moss-Morris, Vegard Bruun Wyller, Knut-Arne Wensaas, Jeannine L.A. Hautvast, Chantal P Bleeker-Rovers, Ute Vollmer-Conna, Dedra Buchwald, Renée Taylor, Paul Little, Esther Crawley, Peter D White & Andrew Lloyd in Fatigue: Biomedicine, Health & Behavior pp1-16 [Published online: 19 Jan 2018]

Background:

The purpose of the Collaborative on Fatigue Following Infection (COFFI) is for investigators of post-infection fatigue (PIF) and other syndromes to collaborate on these enigmatic and poorly understood conditions by studying relatively homogeneous populations with known infectious triggers. Utilising COFFI, pooled data and stored biosamples will support both epidemiological and laboratory research to better understand the etiology and risk factors for development and progression of PIF.

Methods:

COFFI consists of prospective cohorts from the UK, Netherlands, Norway, USA, New Zealand and Australia, with some cohorts closed and some open to recruitment. The 9 cohorts closed to recruitment total over 3000 participants, including nearly 1000 with infectious mononucleosis (IM), > 500 with Q fever, > 800 with giardiasis, > 600 with campylobacter gastroenteritis (CG), 190 with Legionnaires disease and 60 with Ross River virus. Follow-ups have been at least 6 months and up to 10 years. All studies use the Fukuda criteria for defining chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

Results:

Preliminary analyses indicated that risk factors for non-recovery from PIF included lower physical fitness, female gender, severity of the acute sickness response, and autonomic dysfunction.

Conclusions:

COFFI is an international collaboration which should be able to answer questions based on pooled data that are not answerable in the individual cohorts. Possible questions may include the following: Do different infections trigger different PIF syndromes (e.g. CFS vs. irritable bowel syndrome)?; What are longitudinal predictors of PIF and its severity?

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Factors impacting the illness trajectory of post-infectious fatigue syndrome (PIFS)

Posted on 01/30/2018 by wames

Research abstract:

Factors impacting the illness trajectory of post-infectious fatigue syndrome: a qualitative study of adults’ experiences, by Eva Stormorken, Leonard A. Jason and Marit Kirkevold in BMC Public Health [Published: 13 December 2017]

Background:
Post-infectious fatigue syndrome (PIFS), also known as post-viral fatigue syndrome, is a complex condition resulting in physical, cognitive, emotional, neurological, vocational and/or role performance disabilities in varying degrees that changes over time. The needs for health care resources are high, and costly, as is the economic burden on the affected individuals. Many factors may impact the trajectory, and frequently PIFS develops into a chronic condition.

Health professionals lack understanding and knowledge, which results in delayed diagnosis, lack of recognition, appropriate treatment, support and practical help. The aim of our study was to explore, from the perspective of persons who had lived with PIFS for four years following an outbreak of Giardia l. induced enteritis, factors that may have impacted their illness trajectory and how these factors had played a role during different phases.

Methods:
In this retrospective exploratory qualitative study a group of 26 affected adults between 26 and 59 years old were selected for in-depth interviews. A maximum variation sample was recruited from a physician-diagnosed cohort of persons with PIFS enrolled at a tertiary outpatient fatigue clinic. The interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and subjected to qualitative content analysis.

Results:
Unhelpful and helpful factors were associated with the healthcare system, health professionals and the affected persons were experienced as having an impact on the trajectory. External impacting factors which are related to the health care system, providers and the social security system are misdiagnosis, trivialization of symptoms, unhelpful advice, delayed diagnosis and lack of appropriate help. Internal impacting factors related to the affected individuals were lack of knowledge, overestimating functional capacity, assuming the condition will pass, ignoring body signals and denial. A model of impacting factors in each phase of the trajectory is presented.

Conclusion:
Unmet needs may result in unnecessary disability and high societal and personal costs. Enhanced knowledge of impacting factors in each phase of the trajectory may contribute to more timely and tailored health care services and less use of health services. Increased functional capacity, improved health and ability to work or study may reduce the societal costs and the economic burden for the affected individuals.

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Could ME/CFS be a chronic form of sepsis?

Posted on 01/29/2018 by wames

Simmaron Research blog post, by Cort Johnson, 1 January 2018: Could Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) Be a Chronic Form of Sepsis?

“In this monograph I would like to explore the concept of neuro-immune fatigue as a metabolic illness resulting from a series of events beginning with an infection, toxic exposure or neurologic injury.” Dr. David Bell, 2007

 

This is one of a series of blogs highlighting hypotheses mostly written by doctors or other professionals with ME/CFS, or in this case, doctors who have cared for them. The hypothesis examined in this case: Dr. Bell’s idea, produced in his monograph, “Cellular Hypoxia and Neuro-immune Fatigue”, that chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) could be a kind of “slow sepsis”.

Bell’s “Cellular Hypoxia” book was published in 2007, long before he was probably acquainted with Dr. Naviaux’s and others’ work and before the recent explosion of interest in cellular energy production in ME/CFS. Naviaux and others would probably smile, though, at Bell’s prediction that with ME/CFS and other diseases, “we may be witnessing the emergence of the next era of medicine: the diagnosis and treatment of cellular metabolic diseases”.

Sepsis is a life-threatening response to infection or trauma that can lead to tissue damage, organ failure, and death. In some ways, sepsis sounds similar to autoimmunity. For reasons the medical profession does not understand, sepsis begins when the immune system resets itself, stops fighting pathogens, and turns on the body.

The results are often devastating. The near complete body breakdown that results makes sepsis the most expensive disease hospitals treat.  Forty percent of patients with severe sepsis do not survive.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) – A Mild but Chronic State of Septic Shock?

ME/CFS is obviously not sepsis, but it does share some interesting characteristics.  With his “cellular hypoxia” monograph published in 2007, Dr. David Bell suggested that people with ME/CFS may exist in a “mild, but chronic state of septic shock”. Bell came to this conclusion after finding that sepsis and ME/CFS produces what he believed is a similar kind of oxygen dysfunction. In sepsis and in ME/CFS, Dr. Bell notes that oxygen is actually abundant: it’s abundant in the air, the lungs and the blood of ME/CFS patients, but it’s just not getting taken up by the tissues.

Bell reports that in septic shock, the following events occur (note the last one):

  • a serious infection occurs which –
  • results in the production of cytokines which –
  • increases nitric oxide levels which then –
  • interfere with the production of cellular energy.

Bell noted that when nitric oxide blocks the flow of oxygen in severe septic shock, a patient can still die despite doctors giving him/her as much blood and oxygen as they need.

Bell suggests a similar process to sepsis occurs more gradually in ME/CFS. First, an initiating infection or toxic exposure triggers the immune system to produce pro-inflammatory cytokines and nitric oxide (NO). From there, NO increases peroxynitrite and superoxide (Martin Pall’s hypothesis), which causes oxidative stress and interferes with mitochondrial function.

Ultimately, the cell becomes hypoxic (oxygen-starved), and neuropathies and autoimmune and other problems develop.

The idea that impaired oxygen intake might be limiting energy production has gained some currency since Bell wrote his monograph.  Vermoulen’s exercise studies suggest that impaired oxygen intake, not mitochondrial problems, is the key issue in energy generation. The early stages of Ron Davis’s collaboration with an San Jose State University bio-engineer suggest that the red blood cells may have difficulty getting to the tissues. Other researchers have found autoantibodies to receptors that open and close the blood vessels in a subset of ME/CFS patients.

Last year, Chris Armstrong in, The “Starvation” Disease? Metabolomics Meets Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Down Under“, took the sepsis/ME/CFS notion one step further when he noted that many of the metabolomic anomalies (reduced amino acids, reduced lipids and increased glucose levels) found in ME/CFS are also found in sepsis and starvation.

Remarking that during sepsis, immune cells rely entirely on glycolysis to proliferate, Armstrong speculated, much as Bell did years earlier, that an infection or autoimmune process might have triggered a sepsis-like condition which lead to a state of chronic metabolic starvation.

A last tie to sepsis is an incidental one.  Ron Davis and Ron Tompkins of the Open Medicine Foundation worked on sepsis together. Based on his work there, Davis has said ME/CFS could be a kind of atypical sepsis.

Read more

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Could you create a database for WAMES?

Posted on 01/29/2018 by wames

WAMES needs a relational database

We are urgently looking for a volunteer to create a database using Microsoft Access.

This database would enable us to monitor the work of WAMES and extract data to support funding applications.

The WAMES team has a clear plan for the database and will be able to input and manipulate the data once the database is set up. You would work from home with contact and information from the chair Jan Russell

For more information email jan@wames.org.uk

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Eukaryotes in the gut microbiota in ME/CFS

Posted on 01/26/2018 by wames

Research abstract:

Eukaryotes in the gut microbiota in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, by Alexandra H. Mandarano, Ludovic Giloteaux, Betsy A. Keller, Susan M. Levine, Maureen R. Hanson in  PeerJ 6:e4282 [January 22, 2018]

Patients with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) often suffer from gastrointestinal symptoms and many are diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

Previous studies, including from our laboratory, have demonstrated that the ME/CFS gut bacterial composition is altered and less diverse when compared to healthy individuals. Patients have increased biomarkers of inflammation and leaky gut syndrome.

To further investigate dysbiosis in the ME/CFS gut microbiome, we sought to characterize the eukaryotes present in the gut of 49 individuals with ME/CFS and 39 healthy controls.

Using 18S rRNA sequencing, we have identified eukaryotes in stool samples of 17 healthy individuals and 17 ME/CFS patients. Our analysis demonstrates a small, nonsignificant decrease in eukaryotic diversity in ME/CFS patients compared to healthy individuals.

In addition, ME/CFS patients show a nonsignificant increase in the ratio of fungal phyla Basidiomycota to Ascomycota, which is consistent with ongoing inflammation in ME/CFS. We did not identify specific eukaryotic taxa that are associated with ME/CFS disease status.

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Elevations of ventricular lactate levels occur in both CFS & FM

Posted on 01/25/2018 by wames

Research abstract:

Elevations of Ventricular Lactate Levels Occur in Both Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia, by Benjamin H. Natelson, Diana Vu, Jeremy D. Coplan, Xiangling Mao, Michelle Blate, Guoxin Kang, Eli Soto, Tolga Kapusuz & Dikoma C. Shungu in Fatigue 2017; 5(1):15-20. [Epub 2017 Feb 20]

Background:

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and fibromyalgia (FM) frequently have overlapping symptoms, leading to the suggestion that the same disease processes may underpin the two disorders – the unitary hypothesis. However, studies investigating the two disorders have reported substantial clinical and/or biological differences between them, suggesting distinct pathophysiological underpinnings.

Purpose:

The purpose of this study was to further add to the body of evidence favoring different disease processes in CFS and FM by comparing ventricular cerebrospinal fluid lactate levels among patients with CFS alone, FM alone, overlapping CFS and FM symptoms, and healthy control subjects.

Methods:

Ventricular lactate was assessed in vivo with proton magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging (1H MRSI) with the results normed across the 2 studies in which the data were collected.

Results:

Mean CSF lactate levels in CFS, FM and CFS+FM did not differ among the three groups, but were all significantly higher than the mean values for control subjects.

Conclusion:

While patients with CFS, FM and comorbid CFS and FM can be differentiated from healthy subjects based on measures of CFS lactate, this neuroimaging outcome measure is not a viable biomarker for differentiating CFS from FM or from patients in whom symptoms of the two disorders overlap.

Solve ME/CFS blog post, 23 January 2018:  Elevations of ventricular lactate levels occur in both chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia

CFS and FM were found to have statistically indistinguishable levels of lactate in the recent finding detailed in Fatigue, but we don’t have proof this reflects the same underlying cause. Nonetheless, ventricular lactate is indicated as a viable biomarker of underlying brain dysfunction for some patients with either or both diagnoses. The authors note that further research will be needed to further address if CFS and FM are different illnesses or variations of the same condition.

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Longitudinal associations of lymphocyte subsets with clinical outcomes in CFS

Posted on 01/24/2018 by wames

Research abstract:

Longitudinal associations of lymphocyte subsets with clinical outcomes in chronic fatigue syndrome, by  Melissa L. Mehalick, Karen B. Schmaling , Daniel E. Sabath, & Dedra S. Buchwald in Fatigue: Biomedicine, Health & Behavior 2018 pp 1-12  [Published online: 12 Jan 2018]

Background:

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is characterized by prolonged fatigue and other physical and neurocognitive symptoms. Some studies suggest that CFS is accompanied by disruptions in the number and function of various lymphocytes. However, it is not clear which lymphocytes might influence CFS symptoms.

Purpose:

To determine if patient reported fatigue symptoms and physical functioning scores significantly changed across time with lymphocyte counts as evidence of a relation among chronic fatigue symptoms and the immune response.

Methods:

The current longitudinal, naturalistic study assessed the cellular expression of three lymphocyte subtypes – natural killer (NK) cells (CD3 − CD16+ and CD3 − CD56+) and naïve T cells (CD4 + CD45RA+) – to determine whether changes in lymphocytes at 4 time points across 18 months were associated with clinical outcomes, including CFS symptoms, physical functioning, and vitality, among patients with chronic fatigue. Latent growth curve models were used to examine the longitudinal relationship between lymphocytes and clinical outcomes.

Results:

Ninety-three patients with Fukuda-based CFS and seven with non-CFS fatigue provided study data. Results indicated that higher proportions of naïve T cells and lower proportions of NK cells were associated with worse physical functioning, whereas higher proportions of NK cells (CD3 − CD16+) and lower proportions of naïve T cells were associated with fewer CFS symptoms.

Conclusion:

These findings suggest that lymphocytes are modestly related to clinical outcomes over time.

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Genome-epigenome interactions associated with ME/CFS

Posted on 01/23/2018 by wames

Research abstract:

Genome-Epigenome Interactions Associated with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, by Santiago Herrera, Wilfred C de Vega, David Ashbrook, Suzanne D Vernon, Patrick O McGowan in Biorxiv [preprint 22 Dec 2017]

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) is an example of a complex disease of unknown etiology.

Multiple studies point to disruptions in immune functioning in ME/CFS patients as well as with specific genetic polymorphisms and alterations of the DNA methylome in lymphocytes. However, the association between DNA methylation and genetic background in relation to the ME/CFS is currently unknown.

In this study we explored this association by characterizing the genomic (~4.3 million SNPs) and epigenomic (~480 thousand CpG loci) variability between populations of ME/CFS patients and healthy controls.

We found significant associations of methylation states in T-lymphocytes at several CpG loci and regions with ME/CFS phenotype. These methylation anomalies are in close proximity to genes involved with immune function and cellular metabolism. Finally, we found significant correlations of genotypes with methylation phenotypes associated with ME/CFS.

The findings from this study highlight the role of epigenetic and genetic interactions in complex diseases, and suggest several genetic and epigenetic elements potentially involved in the mechanisms of disease in ME/CFS

Conclusions
We identified over one hundred differentially methylated CpG loci associated with ME/CFS in T lymphocytes. Approximately half of these were clustered in differentially methylated regions of 500bp in size or less. Our data and analyses suggest that there is an indirect role of genotype influencing DNA methylation patterns associated with ME/CFS. We found no substantial large-effect direct associations of specific genotypes with ME/CFS disease phenotype. Larger scale genome wide association studies are necessary to test for potential small-effect associations between genotype and ME/CFS phenotype.

All of the methylation values at differentially methylated loci in T lymphocytes had significant correlations with specific genotypes at neighboring SNPs (within a window of 1 Mbp), indicating that particular genetic backgrounds may influence methylation levels differently in ME/CFS patients than in controls. The genomic elements associated with genetic and epigenetic variants characteristic of ME/CFS patients in this study constitute targets for future research. Understanding the molecular mechanisms of genetic-epigenetic interactions of these targets will be key to develop new treatments for ME/CFS, and can serve as a model to understand the molecular basis of related complex diseases.

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