CFS Study: no evidence of a biomarker

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Gene expression in peripheral blood leukocytes in monozygotic twins discordant

for chronic fatigue: no evidence of a biomarker.

Journal: PLoS ONE. 2009 Jun 5;4(6):e5805. Authors: Byrnes A, Jacks A,

Dahlman- K, Evengard B, FA, Pedersen NL, Sullivan PF. Affiliation:

Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel

Hill, North Carolina, United States of America. NLM Citation: PMID: 19503787

BACKGROUND: Chronic fatiguing illness remains a poorly understood syndrome of

unknown pathogenesis. We attempted to identify biomarkers for chronic fatiguing

illness using microarrays to query the transcriptome in peripheral blood

leukocytes. METHODS: Cases were 44 individuals who were clinically evaluated and

found to meet standard international criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome or

idiopathic chronic fatigue, and controls were their monozygotic co-twins who

were clinically evaluated and never had even one month of impairing fatigue.

Biological sampling conditions were standardized and RNA stabilizing media were

used. These methodological features provide rigorous control for bias resulting

from case-control mismatched ancestry and experimental error. Individual gene

expression profiles were assessed using Affymetrix Human Genome U133 Plus 2.0

arrays.

FINDINGS: There were no significant differences in gene expression for any

transcript. CONCLUSIONS: Contrary to our expectations, we were unable to

identify a biomarker for chronic fatiguing illness in the transcriptome of

peripheral blood leukocytes suggesting that positive findings in prior studies

may have resulted from experimental bias.

[Note: This is an Open Access article, available for free at

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0005805 ]