The XMRV virus (Credit: AJC1
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Links: - Wellcome Trust - Professor Greg Towers - Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute A virus previously thought to be associated with chronic fatigue syndrome is not the cause of the disease, a detailed study led by UCL scientists has shown. The research shows that cell samples used in previous research were contaminated with the virus identified as XMRV and that XMRV is present in the mouse genome. XMRV was first linked to chronic fatigue syndrome - also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) - in a study published in October 2009, where blood samples from chronic fatigue syndrome patients were found to have traces of the virus. XMRV had also been identified previously in samples from certain prostate cancer patients. The new study, published in Retrovirology , identifies the source of XMRV in chronic fatigue syndrome samples as being cells or mouse DNA rather than infection by XMRV. The research does not rule out a virus cause of chronic fatigue syndrome - it is simply not this virus. The research team developed improved methods to detect XMRV against the genetic noise of other sequences and make recommendations for future study of virus causes of human disease.
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