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Driving research of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME / CFS),
Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome (PTLDS), Fibromyalgia and Long COVID.

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New Publication from Christopher Armstrong & Colleagues!

Today, we are excited to share a new publication from Christopher Armstrong, PhD, and colleagues: “Unravelling shared mechanisms: insights from recent ME/CFS research to illuminate long COVID pathologies.” This comprehensive review is proudly supported by OMF. 

 

Headshot of Chris Armstrong smiling.From the Desk of Christopher Armstrong, PhD, 

Director of the Melbourne ME/CFS Collaboration

 

I am proud to present our review paper in Cell Trends in Molecular Medicine, which delves into the recent research world of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) and its potential insights into understanding Long COVID (LC).

 

To complete this review, we assessed over 500 ME/CFS reviews and research articles released over the past five years and there were approximately 300 research papers with appropriate sample sizes that we used to formulate this review. We sub-categorized the publications into research areas and ultimately chose five areas to focus on within the review. This choice was based on their relevance to LC and the breadth of research. 

 

The major areas covered include:

  • Metabolic abnormalities
  • Immune dysfunction
  • Vascular pathologies
  • Central nervous system dysfunction
  • Gut dysbiosis

Although we couldn’t include all the papers we reviewed, it was heartening to see the quality and quantity of research in ME/CFS over the past years. The field is rapidly expanding, with fresh research and new names emerging amidst the wealth of published articles.

 

As part of the review, we produced a simple cyclical model that brings the major research areas together to highlight that any combination of these areas can and likely do interact to create an altered physiological state underpinning the disease. Individual patients are unlikely to present the full array anomalies but likely experience enough to sustain a cycle or loop, thereby creating a model that can account for the heterogeneity of the disease. 

 

Our simple model, though basic in nature, could potentially provide a valuable perspective for understanding the complexities of both ME/CFS and Long COVID. The paper underscores the shared clinical similarities between the two conditions, offering a unique perspective on disease pathologies and their interconnected influence.

 

Read the full review!

 

 

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Microvesicles and viral sequencing
Microvesicles are a type of extracellular vesicle that is released from the cell membrane. Vesicles are small, fluid-filled sacs or vacuoles within the body. Sequencing is a technique used to determine the exact sequence of bases (A, C, G, and T) in a DNA (or viral) molecule.
NMR Metabolomics
NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) is an instrument/tool used to perform metabolic studies, metabolic profiling, and metabolomics in biofluids and tissues for more than 40 years using magnetic fields. There is a very close connection between metabolic measurements and NMR. This connection has flourished because of NMR’s many unique strengths for characterizing complex mixtures’ chemical composition.
Proteomics
The large-scale study of proteins, which are large, complex molecules that are required for structure, function, and regulation of the human body's tissues and organs.
Immune cell profiling
The immune system has many important regulatory roles in disease development and progression. Given the emergence of effective immune therapies, reliable predictors of response are needed. Immune cell profiling determines response by evaluating immune cell populations from treated and untreated samples. For our purposes, we will evaluate the white blood cell response to the viral infection using a process called “Cytof.”
Leukocyte Genomics
A leukocyte is a colorless cell circulating in the blood and body fluids and is involved in counteracting foreign substances and disease. A genome is all genetic material of an organism. Genomics is a biology field focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. Therefore, leukocyte genomics is the study of all genetic material of leukocytes.
Metabolomics
Metabolomics is a way to study metabolism – that is, through measuring amounts of the metabolites (small molecules) produced by our bodies as we convert food into energy and other molecules that our cells need to survive. Metabolomics technology is ‘large-scale,’ meaning that several thousand metabolites can be measured from a single sample of e.g., blood or urine.
Micro RNA
Cells use Micro RNA to control whether a particular gene is making too much, too little or the normal amount of its protein at a particular time.
Autoantibodies
Antibodies that react with self-molecules and that occur in healthy individuals and are referred to as natural antibodies or autoantibodies.
Extracellular DNA for viral reactivation and Mitochondrial DNA
exDNA (extracellular DNA), exDNA is often secreted actively and is used to perform several tasks, thereby offering an attractive target or tool for biotechnological, medical, environmental, and general microbiological applications. Viruses are intracellular parasites that rely to a significant extent on the host cell for replication. Viral reactivation occurs when an active replication of the viral genome results in a lytic (degradation of the cell) infection characterized by the release of new progeny (descendant) virus particles.