title: Humoral Immunity Profiling of Subjects with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis Using a Random Peptide Microarray Differentiates Cases from Controls with High Specificity and Sensitivity.
abstract: Myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) is a complex, heterogeneous illness of unknown etiology. The search for biomarkers that can delineate cases from controls is one of the most active areas of ME research; however, little progress has been made in achieving this goal. In contrast to identifying biomarkers that are directly involved in the pathological process, an immunosignature identifies antibodies raised to proteins expressed during, and potentially involved in, the pathological process. Although these proteins might be unknown, it is possible to detect antibodies that react to these proteins using random peptide arrays. In the present study, we probe a custom 125,000 random 12-mer peptide microarray with sera from 21 ME cases and 21 controls from the USA and Europe and used these data to develop a diagnostic signature. We further used these peptide sequences to potentially uncover the naturally occurring candidate antigens to which these antibodies may specifically react with in vivo. Our analysis revealed a subset of 25 peptides that distinguished cases and controls with high specificity and sensitivity. Additionally, Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) searches suggest that these peptides primarily represent human self-antigens and endogenous retroviral sequences and, to a minor extent, viral and bacterial pathogens.
authors.affiliation: Nevada Center for Biomedical Research, 1664 N Virginia St. MS 0552, Reno, NV, 89557-0552, USA.
authors.forename: Sahajpreet
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Singh
authors.affiliation: The Biodesign Institute Center for Innovations in Medicine at Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA.
authors.forename: Phillip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Stafford
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Nevada, Reno, NV, USA.|Nevada INBRE Bioinformatics Core, University of Nevada, Reno, NV, USA.
authors.forename: Karen A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Schlauch
authors.affiliation: Nevada INBRE Bioinformatics Core, University of Nevada, Reno, NV, USA.
authors.forename: Richard R
authors.initials: RR
authors.lastname: Tillett
authors.affiliation: Tahoe Bioinformatics, Incline Village, Reno, NV, USA.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gollery
authors.affiliation: The Biodesign Institute Center for Innovations in Medicine at Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA.
authors.forename: Stephen Albert
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Johnston
authors.affiliation: Nevada Center for Biomedical Research, 1664 N Virginia St. MS 0552, Reno, NV, 89557-0552, USA.|Kazan Federal University, Kazan, Russian Federation.
authors.forename: Svetlana F
authors.initials: SF
authors.lastname: Khaiboullina
authors.affiliation: Nevada Center for Biomedical Research, 1664 N Virginia St. MS 0552, Reno, NV, 89557-0552, USA.
authors.forename: Kenny L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: De Meirleir
authors.affiliation: Nevada Center for Biomedical Research, 1664 N Virginia St. MS 0552, Reno, NV, 89557-0552, USA.
authors.forename: Shanti
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rawat
authors.affiliation: R.E.D. Laboratories, Zellik, Belgium.
authors.forename: Tatjana
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Mijatovic
authors.affiliation: Nevada Center for Biomedical Research, 1664 N Virginia St. MS 0552, Reno, NV, 89557-0552, USA.
authors.forename: Krishnamurthy
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Subramanian
authors.affiliation: Kazan Federal University, Kazan, Russian Federation. palotas@asklepios-med.eu.|Asklepios-Med (private medical practice and research center), Kossuth Lajos sgt. 23, Szeged, 6722, Hungary. palotas@asklepios-med.eu.
authors.forename: András
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Palotás
authors.affiliation: Nevada Center for Biomedical Research, 1664 N Virginia St. MS 0552, Reno, NV, 89557-0552, USA. vclombardi@nvcbr.org.|Department of Pharmacology, University of Nevada, Reno, School of Medicine, Reno, NV, USA. vclombardi@nvcbr.org.
authors.forename: Vincent C
authors.initials: VC
authors.lastname: Lombardi
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D015673:Fatigue Syndrome, Chronic / Q000276:immunology*; D006801:Humans; D056724:Immunity, Humoral; D010455:Peptides / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D040081:Protein Array Analysis; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D016415:Sequence Alignment
chemical_list: D010455:Peptides
keywords: Antibody; Chronic fatigue syndrome; Immunosignature; Myalgic encephalomyelitis; Peptide array