Volgens een recente studie van Gordon Broderick, Nancy Klimas en anderen

kunnen postvirale EBV-CVS-patiënten relatief goed onderscheiden kunnen worden

van herstelde patiënten m.b.v. de combinatie van de genexpressie van vijf cytokines

(verhoogd: IL-2, IL-6, IL-8, verlaagd: IL-23, min of meer gelijk: IFN-γ).

Los bezien bleken ook andere cytokines, zoals IL-6, af te wijken,

maar deze bleken voor het onderscheiden van de groepen overbodig.

Volgens de auteurs lijkt het er op dat de Th17-immuunresponse in reactie op

een toename van cytokines die Th17 stimuleren (IL-1ß en IL-6) verzwakt is.

De auteurs wijzen er op dat slechts een kleine groep patiënten onderzocht is en

dat hun onderzoeksgroep een specifieke infectie (CVS-patiëntensubgroep) betrof.

Cytokine expression profiles of immune imbalance in post-mononucleosis chronic fatigue.

Journal of Translational Medicine 2012, 10:191 doi:10.1186/1479-5876-10-191.

Gordon Broderick, Ben Z Katz, Henrique Fernandes, Mary Ann Fletcher, Nancy G Klimas, Frederick A Smith, Maurice RG O'Gorman, Suzanne D Vernon and Renee Taylor.

Published: 13 September 2012

Abstract (provisional)

Background

As Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) has been known to follow

Epstein-Bar virus (EBV) and other systemic infections;

our objective was to describe

differences in immune activation

in post-infective CFS (PI-CFS) patients and recovered controls.

We studied 301 adolescents

prospectively over 24 months

following the diagnosis of monospot-positive infectious mononucleosis (IM).

We found an incidence of CFS at 6, 12 and 24 months of 13%, 7% and 4% respectively.

Methods

Using chemiluminescent imaging we measured the concentrations of

IL-1α, 1b, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12 (p70), 13, 15, 17 and 23, IFN-gamma, TNF-α and TNF-β

in duplicate plasma samples available in bio-bank

from 9 PI-CFS subjects and 12 recovered controls at 24 months post-infection.

Results

Standard comparative analysis indicated significant differences in IL-8 and 23

across subject groups.

In constructing a linear classification model IL-6, 8 and 23 were selected

by two different statistical approaches as discriminating features,

with IL-1α, IL-2 and IFN-γ also selected in one model or the other.

This supported an assignment accuracy of better than 80%

at a confidence level of 0.95 into PI-CFS versus recovered controls.

Conclusion

These results suggest that co-expression patterns in as few as 5 cytokines

associated with Th17 function

may hold promise as a tool for the diagnosis of post-infectious CFS.

Keywords

Cytokines, Infectious mononucleosis, Chronic fatigue, Classification model

http://www.translational-medicine.com/content/pdf/1479-5876-10-191.pdf