No evidence for xenotropic murine leukemia-related virus infection in Sweden using internally controlled multiepitope suspension array serology

• Many syndromes have a large number of differential diagnoses, a situation which calls for multiplex diagnostic systems. Myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), also named chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), is a common disease of unknown etiology. A mouse retrovirus, xenotropic murine leukemia-related virus (XMRV), was found in ME/CFS patients and blood donors, but this was not corroborated. However, the paucity of serological investigations on XMRV in humans prompted us to develop a serological assay which cover many aspects of XMRV antigenicity. It is a novel suspension array method, using a multiplex IgG assay with nine recombinant proteins from the env and gag genes of XMRV and 38 peptides based on known epitopes of vertebrate gamma-retroviruses. IgG antibodies were sought in 520 blood donors and 85 ME/CFS patients and in positive-and negative-control sera from animals. We found no differences in seroreactivity between blood donors and ME/CFS patients for any of the antigens. This did not support an association between ME/CFS and XMRV infection. The multiplex serological system had several advantages: (i) biotinylated protein G allowed us to run both human and animal sera, which is essential because of a lack of XMRV-positive humans; (ii) a novel quality control was a pan-peptide positive-control rabbit serum; and (iii) synthetic XMRV Gag peptides with degenerate positions covering most of the variation of murine leukemia-like viruses did not give higher background than nondegenerate analogs. The principle may be used for creation of variant tolerant peptide serologies. Thus, our system allows rational large-scale serological assays with built-in quality control.

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MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Klinisk medicin (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Clinical Medicine (hsv//eng)

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Hälsa och välfärd

Health and Welfare

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