Thursday 24 February 2011

NEW ME/CFS AND LYME DISEASE RESEARCH

New research has just been published, highly significant for those with Chronic Lyme disease and ME/CFS.

Distinct Cerebrospinal Fluid Proteomes Differentiate Post-Treatment Lyme Disease from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Can be accessed through Plos One click here


Abstract Top

Background
Neurologic Post Treatment Lyme disease (nPTLS) and Chronic Fatigue (CFS) are syndromes of unknown etiology. They share features of fatigue and cognitive dysfunction, making it difficult to differentiate them. Unresolved is whether nPTLS is a subset of CFS.

Methods and Principal Findings

Pooled cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples from nPTLS patients, CFS patients, and healthy volunteers were comprehensively analyzed using high-resolution mass spectrometry (MS), coupled with immunoaffinity depletion methods to reduce protein-masking by abundant proteins. Individual patient and healthy control CSF samples were analyzed directly employing a MS-based label-free quantitative proteomics approach. We found that both groups, and individuals within the groups, could be distinguished from each other and normals based on their specific CSF proteins (p<0.01). CFS (n = 43) had 2,783 non-redundant proteins, nPTLS (n = 25) contained 2,768 proteins, and healthy normals had 2,630 proteins. Preliminary pathway analysis demonstrated that the data could be useful for hypothesis generation on the pathogenetic mechanisms underlying these two related syndromes.

Conclusions

nPTLS and CFS have distinguishing CSF protein complements. Each condition has a number of CSF proteins that can be useful in providing candidates for future validation studies and insights on the respective mechanisms of pathogenesis. Distinguishing nPTLS and CFS permits more focused study of each condition, and can lead to novel diagnostics and therapeutic interventions.

2 comments:

  1. I saw something on this on Sue's blog too...it was on CBS last night but I did not see it...Thanks again Joanne...

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  2. Hi Renee Yes CBS did something on their news and on line, a missed opportunity for lyme but ok for ME/CFS. However those with open minds will realise the significance for Lyme too and one of the doctors doing the Stanford? study said something supportive but of course I can't remember where I read that.
    I posted some on mt facebook but here are the links for CBS
    http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/02/23/eveningnews/main20035610.shtml

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wcsm5c7Iba0

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