We use cookies to understand how you use our site and to improve your experience. This includes personalizing content and advertising. To learn more, click here. By continuing to use our site, you accept our use of cookies. Cookie Policy.

Features Partner Sites Information LinkXpress hp
Sign In
Advertise with Us
LGC Clinical Diagnostics

Download Mobile App




Characteristic Chemical Signature Identified for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

By LabMedica International staff writers
Posted on 15 Sep 2016
Print article
Image: The LC-20A High Performance Liquid Chromatography (UHPLC) system (Photo courtesy of Shimadzu).
Image: The LC-20A High Performance Liquid Chromatography (UHPLC) system (Photo courtesy of Shimadzu).
Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a multisystem disease that causes long-term pain and disability and it is difficult to diagnose because of its protean symptoms and the lack of a diagnostic laboratory test.

The disease is characterized by profound fatigue and disability lasting for at least six months, episodes of cognitive dysfunction, sleep disturbance, autonomic abnormalities, chronic or intermittent pain syndromes, microbiome abnormalities, cerebral cytokine dysregulation, natural killer cell dysfunction, and other symptoms that are made worse by exertion of any kind.

Scientists at the University Of California San Diego School Of Medicine (San Diego, CA, USA) recruited prospectively patients and controls to their study over a one-year period. Healthy controls were age- and sex-matched volunteers without CFS. The total number of subjects analyzed in this study was 84. This included 23 females and 22 males with CFS and 18 male and 21 female controls.

Targeted, broad-spectrum, chemometric analysis was performed for 612 metabolites from 63 biochemical pathways by hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography, electrospray ionization, and tandem mass spectrometry in a single-injection method. Samples were analyzed on an AB SCIEX QTRAP 5500 triple quadrupole mass spectrometer (AB SCIEX, Framingham, MA, USA) equipped with a Turbo V electrospray ionization (ESI) source, Shimadzu LC-20A UHPLC system (Shimadzu Corporation, Kyoto, Japan), and a PAL CTC autosampler (CTC Analytics AG, Lake Elmo, MN, USA).

Patients with CFS showed abnormalities in 20 metabolic pathways with 80% of the diagnostic metabolites were decreased, consistent with a hypometabolic syndrome. Pathway abnormalities included sphingolipid, phospholipid, purine, cholesterol, microbiome, pyrroline-5-carboxylate, riboflavin, branch chain amino acid, peroxisomal, and mitochondrial metabolism. The diagnostic accuracy rate exceeded 90%. Area under the receiver operator characteristic curve analysis showed diagnostic accuracies of 94% in males using eight metabolites and 96% in females using 13 metabolites.

Robert K. Naviaux, MD, PhD, professor of medicine, pediatrics and pathology and first author of the study said, “CFS is a very challenging disease. It affects multiple systems of the body. Symptoms vary and are common to many other diseases. There is no diagnostic laboratory test. Patients may spend tens of thousands of dollars and years trying to get a correct diagnosis. Despite the heterogeneity of CFS, the diversity of factors that lead to this condition, our findings show that the cellular metabolic response is the same in patients.” The study was published on August 29, 2016, in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

Related Links:
University Of California San Diego
AB SCIEX
Shimadzu
CTC Analytics

New
Gold Member
Human Chorionic Gonadotropin Test
hCG Quantitative - R012
Verification Panels for Assay Development & QC
Seroconversion Panels
New
Bordetella Pertussis Molecular Assay
Alethia Pertussis
New
cTnI/CK-MB/Myo Test
Finecare cTnI/CK-MB/Myo Rapid Quantitative Test

Print article

Channels

Immunology

view channel
Image: The cancer stem cell test can accurately choose more effective treatments (Photo courtesy of University of Cincinnati)

Stem Cell Test Predicts Treatment Outcome for Patients with Platinum-Resistant Ovarian Cancer

Epithelial ovarian cancer frequently responds to chemotherapy initially, but eventually, the tumor develops resistance to the therapy, leading to regrowth. This resistance is partially due to the activation... Read more

Microbiology

view channel
Image: The lab-in-tube assay could improve TB diagnoses in rural or resource-limited areas (Photo courtesy of Kenny Lass/Tulane University)

Handheld Device Delivers Low-Cost TB Results in Less Than One Hour

Tuberculosis (TB) remains the deadliest infectious disease globally, affecting an estimated 10 million people annually. In 2021, about 4.2 million TB cases went undiagnosed or unreported, mainly due to... Read more

Pathology

view channel
Image: The ready-to-use DUB enzyme assay kits accelerate routine DUB activity assays without compromising data quality (Photo courtesy of Adobe Stock)

Sensitive and Specific DUB Enzyme Assay Kits Require Minimal Setup Without Substrate Preparation

Ubiquitination and deubiquitination are two important physiological processes in the ubiquitin-proteasome system, responsible for protein degradation in cells. Deubiquitinating (DUB) enzymes contain around... Read more

Technology

view channel
Image: The HIV-1 self-testing chip will be capable of selectively detecting HIV in whole blood samples (Photo courtesy of Shutterstock)

Disposable Microchip Technology Could Selectively Detect HIV in Whole Blood Samples

As of the end of 2023, approximately 40 million people globally were living with HIV, and around 630,000 individuals died from AIDS-related illnesses that same year. Despite a substantial decline in deaths... Read more

Industry

view channel
Image: The collaboration aims to leverage Oxford Nanopore\'s sequencing platform and Cepheid\'s GeneXpert system to advance the field of sequencing for infectious diseases (Photo courtesy of Cepheid)

Cepheid and Oxford Nanopore Technologies Partner on Advancing Automated Sequencing-Based Solutions

Cepheid (Sunnyvale, CA, USA), a leading molecular diagnostics company, and Oxford Nanopore Technologies (Oxford, UK), the company behind a new generation of sequencing-based molecular analysis technologies,... Read more
Copyright © 2000-2025 Globetech Media. All rights reserved.