Preprint Comparison of T-cell Receptor Diversity of people with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis versus controls, 2023, Dibble, Ponting et al

There's only one difference between the pain I get from eating sugary food* and the pain I get from PEM. The former doesn't require overexertion, starts shortly after eating, and tails off after three hours. The latter does require overexertion, is delayed, and lasts days.

The same burning, crushing muscle pain, but a different trigger, time frame and mechanism? It's not surprising it's hard to find in tests.


* Ditto alcohol, Ventolin, etc.

 

Now published.

Comparison of T-cell receptor diversity of people with myalgic encephalomyelitis versus controls

Abstract

Objective
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME; sometimes referred to as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) is a chronic disease without laboratory test, detailed aetiological understanding or effective therapy. Its symptoms are diverse, but it is distinguished from other fatiguing illnesses by the experience of post-exertional malaise, the worsening of symptoms even after minor physical or mental exertion. Its frequent onset after infection suggests autoimmune involvement or that it arises from abnormal T-cell activation.

Results
To test this hypothesis, we sequenced the genomic loci of α/δ, β and γ T-cell receptors (TCR) from 40 human blood samples from each of four groups: severely affected people with ME; mildly or moderately affected people with ME; people diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, as disease controls; and, healthy controls. Seeking to automatically classify these individuals’ samples by their TCR repertoires, we applied P-SVM, a machine learning method. However, despite working well on a simulated data set, this approach did not allow statistically significant partitioning of samples into the four subgroups. Our findings do not support the hypothesis that blood samples from people with ME frequently contain altered T-cell receptor diversity.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13104-023-06616-4