Cheney on Urnovitz and DNA shuffling/Aug. 2002

[Guest guest]

" Urnowitz's article, initially published on Gulf War Syndrome, but

extended to CFIDS later, is really interesting. What he's discovered

may

be the method by which we change our DNA into better DNA to meet the

challenges of a physiologic threat. Under serious stress like a great

climatic change or a severe catastrophic epidemic, or simply an

indivualized stress, human beings and other primates actually have

regions in their DNA that undergo gene rearrangements around

particular

foci [specific points] within the DNA. These gene rearrangements are

like

shuffling a deck of cards, looking for a better set of genes to allow

the

organism to withstand the threat. In other words, this is the genetic

basis of human evolution under physiologic threat. It has allowed

humans

adapt and live in widely different climates. And should there be some

cataclysmic event like a meteor hit on the planet, we'd probably adapt

and some of us would live on, and this is the mechanism that allows

it.

This gene rearrangement occurs in some CFIDS patients. It may be

helpful

in some patients, and in some patients may be somewhat hurtful. The

rearrangements are random, so it's sort of like a casino game in which

you have to play the cards you're dealt, and some people by chance

alone

get a really good hand, and some people by chance alone don't get

such a

good hand. The bad hands are characterized by the ability to code for

toxic material. [The new gene arrangement can cause the body to

produce

toxins that would not otherwise be present.] That may be important in

understanding why people can remain ill with this for a long time.

They've actually undergone a type of gene mutation.

Urnowitz has also gone on to show that even normal genes are expressed

much differently in this illness than they are normally, suggesting

that

even in the case of normal genes, there's a tremendous change in gene

expression that goes on. [A particular gene may have different effects

under different circumstances, and CFIDS causes greater variation in

gene

expression.] Here's another area where antibiotics might actually,

interestingly, help in this illness. Antibiotics like erythromycin and

doxycycline actually modulate [alter] gene expressions because they

affect protein transcription translation events [the process by which

genes direct the production of specific proteins] and therefore would

affect gene expression. "