一项研究检测了慢性疲劳综合症患者血细胞中的称为鼠白血病病毒（MLV）相关病毒的一种病毒的遗传特征，该研究发表在《美国科学院学报》（PNAS）的网站上。和该研究的论文一同发表的还有一篇关于这项研究的评论以及主编Randy Schekman谈论《美国科学院学报》（PNAS）在评审、接受和发表这篇论文所遵循的程序的一篇社论。
以免疫和神经病症状为特点的慢性疲劳综合症是一种病因未知的使人衰弱的疾病。尽管微生物感染已经被认为是引发它的因素，迄今科学家尚未把任何一种原因与这种疾病明确地联系在一起。
Shyh-Ching Lo及其同事分析了从慢性疲劳综合征患者的外周血单核细胞中提取的DNA，结果在37位患者的32位中发现了鼠白血病病毒（MLV）样病毒基因序列。这组作者说，这些发现表明了需要进一步研究从而确定鼠白血病病毒（MLV）相关病毒是否在其他患者人群中发现，以及这些病毒是否起到了引发这种疾病的作用。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐原文出处：
PNAS doi: 10.1073/pnas.1006901107
Detection of MLV-related virus gene sequences in blood of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome and healthy blood donors
Shyh-Ching Lo a , 1 , Natalia Pripuzova a , Bingjie Li a , Anthony L. Komaroff b , Guo-Chiuan Hung a , Richard Wang c , and Harvey J. Alter c , 1
Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a serious systemic illness of unknown cause. A recent study identified DNA from a xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from 68 of 101 patients (67%) by nested PCR, as compared with 8 of 218 (3.7%) healthy controls. However, four subsequent reports failed to detect any murine leukemia virus (MLV)-related virus gene sequences in blood of CFS patients. We examined 41 PBMC-derived DNA samples from 37 patients meeting accepted diagnostic criteria for CFS and found MLV-like virus gag gene sequences in 32 of 37 (86.5%) compared with only 3 of 44 (6.8%) healthy volunteer blood donors. No evidence of mouse DNA contamination was detected in the PCR assay system or the clinical samples. Seven of 8 gag-positive patients tested again positive in a sample obtained nearly 15 y later. In contrast to the reported findings of near-genetic identity of all XMRVs, we identified a genetically diverse group of MLV-related viruses. The gag and env sequences from CFS patients were more closely related to those of polytropic mouse endogenous retroviruses than to those of XMRVs and were even less closely related to those of ecotropic MLVs. Further studies are needed to determine whether the same strong association with MLV-related viruses is found in other groups of patients with CFS, whether these viruses play a causative role in the development of CFS, and whether they represent a threat to the blood supply.
