DecodeME did not come up with anything that would strongly favour an autoantibody theory (an HLA-DR or maybe complement gene variant). So it is consistent with our idea that there is nothing particularly wrong with the antibodies in people with ME/CFS, but that normal differences in antibody repertoire between men and women might still explain the sex ratio.
DecodeME might confirm a role for an innate-type T cell population, as we suggested, perhaps gamma delta T cells with the butyrophillin gene coming up.
But more than anything DecodeME tends to shift attention to possible neural mechanisms, which we deliberately set to one side in our paper, to keep our focus.
I think DecodeME leaves investigation of priming of innate T cell populations a very valid target. It may further support an interest in interferon signalling, although that might be one of several interferons. I think it emphasises the need to think about hind brain control mechanisms that might interact with immune signals.
I have never been very sold on the FcR1 story, but I thought it was a useful thing to analyse in the context of the sex ratio. I think the laying out of arguments there remains to my liking. Chris Ponting read the article and disagreed about the absence of inflammation, but maybe he will come round to the view of a veteran inflammation scientist in the end.
Independently of DecodeME I have thought more about the possibility that the female predominance might reflect an increased sensitivity of neural tissue to some signal in women - it might even be through interferon receptors. That would bypass the need for involving antibody (as we point out briefly in the paper), leaving the story otherwise much the same - T cells and neurons.
