Autoimmunity as a cause of ME/CFS symptoms (AutonoME)

Project description

ME/CFS is a debilitating disease with an unknown cause. It is possible that autoimmunity plays a role in ME/CFS; this means that people produce antibodies directed against their own body, which can thus cause a wide variety of symptoms. To find out whether autoimmunity causes ME/CFS, antibodies from ME/CFS patients are being studied. This research will also aim to take a step towards drug testing and thus finding new treatment methods.

Goal

The aim of this study is to find the biomedical cause of ME/CFS and identify biomarkers (autoantibodies in the blood), which would enable an objective diagnosis of this disease. The plan is also to work towards testing candidate drugs in the future, for example drugs currently used for autoimmune diseases. The researchers do this by creating an ME/CFS animal model that is so far unique (see approach/method of working).  

Approach

One possible cause of ME/CFS is autoimmunity. With the recent emergence of Long COVID, a disease very similar to ME/CFS in terms of symptoms, it has become possible to test this autoimmunity hypothesis. Like Long COVID patients, ME/CFS patients suffer from fatigue, post-exertional malaise (PEM), difficulty concentrating and headaches, among other symptoms. The research team transferred antibodies from Long COVID patients to mice, which led to these mice developing Long COVID symptoms. In this project, the aim is to use the same approach with antibodies from ME/CFS patients. For this purpose, blood from 100 patients who are also participating in two related research projects will be used.

(Description adapted from project website: see link above)