UK CMRC 2018 Conference - Prof Alain Moreau

[Sasha]

This thread has been split from the conference thread here

Prof Alain Moreau presented on the 'Identification of post-exertional dysregulated circulating microRNAs in ME/CFS pathogenesis'

See also the MEA Summary page 6.



Somewhere around the 25 minute mark, Moreau starts talking about a specific micro-RNA that is something to do with CD-20 and he wonders whether having that micro-RNA distinguishes between those who do and don't respond to rituximab. He mentions that he's going to tell Oystein and Fluge about it (which he has presumably done by now).

Any thoughts, @Jonathan Edwards?

He didn't mention how common it is (and I don't know whether it makes sense to talk about population norms for micro-RNA, given that it's not DNA). It would need to tie in with a response to rituximab for PWME being fairly rare, because if it wasn't, RituxME would have shown positive results.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

Somewhere around the 25 minute mark, Moreau starts talking about a specific micro-RNA that is something to do with CD-20 and he wonders whether having that micro-RNA distinguishes between those who do and don't respond to rituximab. He mentions that he's going to tell Oystein and Fluge about it (which he has presumably done by now).

Any thoughts, @Jonathan Edwards?

This does not sound plausible to me and I worry if a scientists is talking about immune mechanisms and is this sloppy. We do not have any good reason to think rituximab works at all in ME now that we have the phase 3 data. Moreover, if resistance was something told with CD20 it would have been obvious to those doing the trial. Rituximab resistance in tumours (which Moreau quotes) is not relevant to killing physiological B cells of the sort involved in RA or lupus.