Replication of XMRV Study in Sweden

[Guest guest]

An exploration of the relationship between XMRV and ME/CFS has just begun in

Sweden, with funding provided jointly by ME Research UK and the Irish ME Trust

http://www.imet.ie/

Further details can be found at the specific webpage

http://www.meresearch.org.uk/resea... and the key text is given below.

Title

Independent confirmation of the relationship between XMRV and ME/CFS in Sweden

Investigators

Prof Jonas Blomberg and Prof Carl-Gerhard Gottfries

Institutions

Sect of Clinical Virology, Uppsala University Hospital, Uppsala, Sweden;

Institution for Neuroscience and Physiology at the Sahlgrenska Academy,

Gothenburg University, and Gottfries Clinic, Mölndal, Sweden

Background and Aims

The discovery of a retroviral link to ME/CFS, reported recently in the major

journal Science http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/cont... (Science

2009;326(5952):530-1) has the potential to greatly advance diagnosis and

treatment of the illness (see our overview essay, XMRV and ME/CFS - A stunning

find http://www.meresearch.org.uk/infor...). The major finding was that DNA from

the XMRV virus could be detected in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells of

over two-thirds of ME/CFS patients' samples from the blood bank in the

Whittemore Institute tissue repository

http://www.wpinstitute.org/researc... but in less than 4% of healthy control

samples. Also, the researchers reported that XMRV proteins were being expressed

in blood cells from ME/CFS patients at very high levels compared with controls,

and that patient-derived XMRV was infectious and transmissible.

These findings have caught the attention of the scientific world, but the next

steps are equally important. Chief among these is for independent laboratories

across the world to attempt the replication of the WPI findings among their own

local populations of ME/CFS patients - it's sometimes said that replication

studies are where the rubber meets the road in science! Since the WPI

researchers used samples selected from several regions in the US where

" outbreaks of CFS " had been documented (using patients diagnosed on CDC-1994

http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/... and Canadian Clinical criteria 2003

http://www.cfids-cab.org/MESA/ccpc...), blood samples from patients in other

areas or countries might throw up very different results. Will ME/CFS samples

from other regions of the US show similar high rates of positivity? What about

European samples?

This replication study is one attempt to answer this question - to establish

whether XMRV nucleic acid can be found in peripheral blood mononuclear cells,

plasma and serum of Swedish patients and controls. The researchers will

retrospectively test previously stored patients' samples (20 Fukuda-defined

ME/CFS, 20 fibromyalgia, 20 irritable bowel), and 20 controls. In addition, they

will prospectively test samples from 120 ME/CFS patients (defined on the Fukuda

1994 and the Canadian 2003 criteria, similar to patients in the original 2009

report in Science) who will also have functional assessments.

The investigators are well-placed to conduct this confirmation study. Prof

Blomberg http://www.medsci.uu.se/fogrupp/virology/virology.htm is head of the

Research Group of Clinical Virology at the University of Uppsala, and his

research interests include human endogenous retroviruses; the links between

endogenous retroviral sequences (ERVs) of the human genome and diseases such as

multiple sclerosis and schizophrenia; and the development of real time PCRs for

common viral infections. Prof Carl-Gerhard Gottfries is Professor Emeritus at

the Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Mölndal, and founder of the Gottfries

Clinic AB http://www.gottfriesclinic.com/hem... which was formed in Västra

Götaland 1998 for patients with fibromyalgia and ME/CFS, and which is now

situated in Mölndal. The unit has three doctors, nurses and medical secretaries,

and it has also conducted basic clinical research, including trials of

immunomodulatory therapy for FM and CFS.

The results of this important replication study should be available in the

Spring/Summer of 2010.