Preprint Virus Genome Sequences in the Blood of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Patients, 2025, Davis et al

[John Mac]

Abstract​

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) is a baffling disease. The disease has a wide spectrum of severity, to date has no established molecular marker, no known causation, and no cure. Many patients report in retrospect that they suffered a virus infection prior to suffering their first symptoms of ME/CFS. Therefore, we report a search for virus genome sequences in the cell-free blood of ME/CFS patients and healthy controls. We used a panel of molecular probes to assess the presence or absence of 185 diverse human viruses in each sample. We identified a total of seventeen viruses, with more in the healthy controls than in the ME/CFS patients.

Virus Genome Sequences in the Blood of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Patients

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) is a baffling disease. The disease has a wide spectrum of severity, to date has no established molecular marker, no known causation, and no cure. Many patients report in retrospect that they suffered a virus infection prior to suffering...

www.medrxiv.org

 

[forestglip]

Here's the second half of the results section:

Surprisingly, more viruses were found in the healthy controls than in the ME/CFS patients. No virus was found to be unique to the patients. No virus was found systematically in all ME/CFS samples.

However, a probe mapping to human alphaherpesvirus 3 (Probe ID: NC_001348_4033) showed the strongest signal, with both the largest effect size and the most significant p-value (Table 1, Figure 2). As seen in Figure 2, this probe is elevated in six ME/CFS patients and absent in all healthy controls.

 

[forestglip]

Human alphaherpesvirus 3 (HHV-3), which was found only in ME/CFS cases, is varicella zoster virus (VZV), AKA chicken pox and shingles.

That's 6/17 people with ME/CFS versus 0/7 healthy controls with this virus.

 

[Kitty]

Doesn't nearly everyone have HHV3, though?

 

[hotblack]

Details of the participants have been published (Chang et al. 2021).

Details of that paper discussed in this thread with an overview from @Simon M
A Comprehensive Examination of Severely Ill ME/CFS Patients, 2021, Chang et al
Or direct links to the paper
Web | PMC | PDF https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare9101290

It looks like they were all severely ill and visited in their homes which may impact viruses exposed to? But I guess cause/effect/chance is difficult to be sure of.

 

[hotblack]

Here’s the figure showing virus sequences detected by group

 

[Kitty]

Might some of these signatures be from vaccination?

I don't recognise a lot of the viruses, but bat lyssavirus can be serious and it's really surprising to see that much exposure to it in a small group. It's in the same family as rabies, and infection can occasionally result in death.

However, anyone working in bat conservation or rehab will be vaccinated regularly against rabies—including revaccination if they've even been licked by a bat—so it wouldn't be surprising to find evidence of that. (Well, if your cohort has an unusual number of ecologists in it, at least.)

 

[Eleanor]

Might some of these signatures be from vaccination?

I don't recognise a lot of the viruses, but bat lyssavirus can be serious and it's really surprising to see that much exposure to it in a small group. It's in the same family as rabies, and infection can occasionally result in death.

However, anyone working in bat conservation or rehab will be vaccinated regularly against rabies—including revaccination if they've even been licked by a bat—so it wouldn't be surprising to find evidence of that. (Well, if your cohort has an unusual number of ecologists in it, at least.)

So none of the healthy controls has signs of a really common human herpes virus, but nearly half of them have a bat virus? Were they recruited from a superhero lair under Gotham City?

 

[BrightCandle]

Its not the first time some one has gone looking in the blood for viruses unique to the disease. Its a bit like looking for your keys where the light is regardless of whether you dropped them there or not, we look in blood because its easy. If the condition is caused by a persistent viral infection its in tissue or bone marrow and mostly held there by the immune system. Until we develop a PET tracer we aren't going to see it clearly in every patient.

 

[Kitty]

nearly half of them have a bat virus? Were they recruited from a superhero lair under Gotham City?

Not even half of bats have it.

Hard to be sure of prevalence because it depends how actively it's monitored, but with lyssavirus 2 it's likely to be low single figures (not all species even carry it). Lyssavirus 1 is more common, maybe up to 20% of bats positive for it in some areas.

 

[Barry]

Many patients report in retrospect that they suffered a virus infection prior to suffering their first symptoms of ME/CFS.

Immediately after an operation, my wife went down with a really nasty flu-like infection, the combination of the two completely floored her for a couple of days, which was very uncharacteristic, as she invariably managed to battle through such bugs normally. It was only when she was attending her post-operative consultation, and the consultant said something else was going on because her fatigue should be backing off, that it started to become apparent she would never be the same again. Later diagnosed with ME. Thank heaven the ME/CFS consultant was one of the sane ones, and observed that my wife was already doing the best she could for herself, and did not recommend GET or CBT. At that time we would not have known any different, and would have trusted whatever was advised. Though I think alarm bells would have maybe rung for me if there had been any implication my wife was bringing it on herself, because as I've said before, my wife is someone who always does as much as she can, not as little as she can, same as most people here I think.