Whole blood human transcriptome and virome analysis of ME/CFS patients experiencing post-exertional malaise following cardiopulmonary exercise testing
ORCID
J. Mark Van Ness: 0000-0001-5902-8735
Document Type
Article
Publication Title
PLoS ONE
Department
Health, Exercise, and Sport Sciences Department
ISSN
1932-6203
Volume
14
Issue
3
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0212193
First Page
1
Last Page
16
Publication Date
3-21-2019
Abstract
Myalgic encephalomyelitis / chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is a syndrome of unknown etiology characterized by profound fatigue exacerbated by physical activity, also known as post-exertional malaise (PEM). Previously, we did not detect evidence of immune dysregulation or virus reactivation outside of PEM periods. Here we sought to determine whether cardiopulmonary exercise stress testing of ME/CFS patients could trigger such changes. ME/CFS patients (n = 14) and matched sedentary controls (n = 11) were subjected to cardiopulmonary exercise on 2 consecutive days and followed up to 7 days post-exercise, and longitudinal whole blood samples analyzed by RNA-seq. Although ME/CFS patients showed significant worsening of symptoms following exercise versus controls, with 8 of 14 ME/CFS patients showing reduced oxygen consumption (V̇O2) on day 2, transcriptome analysis yielded only 6 differentially expressed gene (DEG) candidates when comparing ME/CFS patients to controls across all time points. None of the DEGs were related to immune signaling, and no DEGs were found in ME/CFS patients before and after exercise. Virome composition (P = 0.746 by chi-square test) and number of viral reads (P = 0.098 by paired t-test) were not significantly associated with PEM. These observations do not support transcriptionally-mediated immune cell dysregulation or viral reactivation in ME/CFS patients during symptomatic PEM episodes.
Recommended Citation
Bouquet, J.,
Li, T.,
Gardy, J. L.,
Kang, X.,
Stevens, S.,
Stevens, J.,
Van Ness, J. M.,
Snell, C.,
Potts, J.,
Miller, R. R.,
Morshed, M.,
McCabe, M.,
Parker, S.,
Uyaguari, M.,
Tang, P.,
Steiner, T.,
Chan, W.,
De Souza, A.,
Mattman, A.,
Patrick, D. M.,
&
Chiu, C. Y.
(2019).
Whole blood human transcriptome and virome analysis of ME/CFS patients experiencing post-exertional malaise following cardiopulmonary exercise testing.
PLoS ONE, 14(3), 1–16.
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0212193
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/cop-facarticles/916