Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Immunedeficiencies

Project description

CFS is not a novel, but a largely unknown multisystemic disease, causing extreme exhaustion, sleeping disorders, unspecific pain, neurological and motorical disorders as well as alterations in the immune response. Most patients experience first symptoms between 20 and 40 years. Due to the lack of clinical biomarkers and symptom similarity to psychological disorders, patients suffer from long waiting times until diagnosis. The multisystemic nature of CFS hampers research on disease onset. Thus, initial trigger events remain to be elucidated. However, recent studies suggest persistent viral infections (i.e. EBV) to alter immune homeostasis and mucosal epithelial barrier function.

In a retrospective study the invesigators aim to evaluate alterations in the immune system of over 200 affected CFS patients in relationship with serological EBV-antibody titers and clinical symptoms of mononucleosis. Furthermore, in a prospective study, the presence of viral EBV-specific mRNA and host cell-junction mRNA will be examined in biological samples of CFS patients. By this, the invesigators want to associate persistent EBV-infections with an altered immune response due to mucosal epithelial barrier dysfunction. Moreover, the invesigators expect their results to support the search for reliable clinical biomarkers for faster diagnosis in the future. 

(Description adapted from project website: see link above)