Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025:2920:103-112.
doi: 10.1007/978-1-0716-4498-0_7.

Stress-Induced Changes in Immune Signatures in ME/CFS Patients Determined by Transcriptome Analysis

Jackson Gamer  1 , Derek Van Booven  2 , Oskar Zarnowski  3 , Melanie Perez  4 , Joshua Frank  1 , Rajendra P Pangeni  1 , Fanny Collado  1 , Nancy G Klimas  1   5 , Elisa Oltra  6 , Lubov Nathanson  7
Affiliations

Stress-Induced Changes in Immune Signatures in ME/CFS Patients Determined by Transcriptome Analysis

Jackson Gamer et al. Methods Mol Biol. 2025.

Abstract

Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is a chronic, complex multi-organ illness characterized by unexplained debilitating fatigue and post-exertional malaise (PEM). We evaluated transcriptomic changes in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) of ME/CFS patients undergoing an exercise challenge and explored the transcriptomic response to exercise and recovery in PBMC of ME/CFS patients, as compared to healthy controls using RNA sequencing technology. As transcriptomic changes in ME/CFS patients are still in the phase of discovery, analysis of data has to be stringent, and the most important results have to be validated by a different technology, such as real-time PCR or NanoString.

Keywords: Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS); Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC); RNA extraction; RNA-seq data analysis; Transcriptomics.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Smith J, Fritz EL, Kerr JR et al (2005) Association of chronic fatigue syndrome with human leucocyte antigen class II alleles. J Clin Pathol 58(8):860–863 - DOI - PubMed - PMC
    1. Schlauch KA, Khaiboullina SF, De Meirleir KL et al (2016) Genome-wide association analysis identifies genetic variations in subjects with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome. Transl Psychiatry 6:e730 - DOI - PubMed - PMC
    1. de Vega WC, Vernon SD, McGowan PO (2014) DNA methylation modifications associated with chronic fatigue syndrome. PLoS One 9(8):e104757 - DOI - PubMed - PMC
    1. de Vega WC, Herrera S, Vernon SD et al (2017) Epigenetic modifications and glucocorticoid sensitivity in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). BMC Med Genet 10(1):11
    1. Helliwell AM, Sweetman EC, Stockwell PA et al (2020) Changes in DNA methylation profiles of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome patients reflect systemic dysfunctions. Clin Epigenetics 12(1):167 - DOI - PubMed - PMC

LinkOut - more resources