Two years ago, Vincent Lombardi at the Whittemore Peterson Institute in Reno, Nevada, reported a possible cause of the tiredness and muscle pain of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) after discovering a mouse virus called xenotropic murine leukaemia virus-related virus (XMRV) in blood samples from 68 of 101 people with CFS compared with just eight of 218 samples from healthy volunteers.
Now Jay Levy's group at the University of California, San Francisco have evaluated blood samples from 61 patients with CFS from a single clinical practice, 43 of whom had previously been identified as XMRV-positive. Their analysis included polymerase chain reaction and reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction procedures for detection of viral nucleic acids and assays for detection of infectious virus and virus-specific antibodies. They found no evidence of XMRV or other Mouse Leukemia Viruses in these blood samples. In addition, they found that these gammaretroviruses were strongly (X-MLV) or partially (XMRV) susceptible to inactivation by sera from CFS patients and healthy controls, which suggested that establishment of a successful MLV infection in humans would be unlikely. Consistent with previous reports, they detected MLV sequences in commercial laboratory reagents. Their results indicate that previous evidence linking XMRV and MLVs to CFS is likely attributable to laboratory contamination.
In another study, Vinay Pathak at the National Cancer Institute in Frederick, Maryland, suggested that XMRV originated in lab mice between 1993 and 1996 – after many of the people in Lombardi's study were diagnosed with CFS – and so cannot be the cause. Pathak said that researchers grew cancers in mice without immune systems in order to make prostate tumour tissue for study. The tumour cells picked up two leukaemia viruses which combined to form XMRV. The strains in Lombardi's samples are so similar to this “recombinant” virus that it is unlikely to have another source.
Showing posts with label viruses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label viruses. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Friday, October 15, 2010
Good News Day!
I picked up on this announcement yesterday which seems to have got little attention, but despite the rescue of the Chilean miners, this has to be the best news for many a day. Rinderpest, a virus that causes devastating cattle plague, has been wiped out, the first time such an announcement has been made since the end of smallpox more than 30 years ago. John Anderson, the head of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, called the success "the biggest achievement of veterinary history". Rinderpest is the first animal virus to be contained and then eradicated in the wild.
Cattle plagues have recurred throughout history, often accompanying war. They hit Europe during the 18th century, with three long pandemics which took place in the periods of 1709–1720, 1742–1760, and 1768–1786. There was a major outbreak covering the whole of Britain in 1865/66. Later, an outbreak in the 1890s killed 80 to 90 percent of all cattle in Southern Africa. More recently, another rinderpest outbreak that raged across much of Africa in 1982–84 is estimated to have cost at least US$500 million in stock losses.
The rinderpest virus (RPV) is closely related to the measles and canine distemper viruses. Throughout the eighteenth century there were numerous attempts to control the disease by deliberate innoculation of the virus (a process akin to variolation in smallpox), but a true vaccine does not seem to have been developed until the South African, Sir Arnold Theiler, did so during the Boer War, 1899-1902. Theiler's son, Max received the 1951 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for developing an effective vaccine against yellow fever.
Walter Plowright, CMG, FRS, FRCVS was the British veterinary scientist whose work in Kenya led to the development of the Plowright tissue culture rinderpest vaccine, which eventually eliminated the disease worldwide. For this achievement, Plowright was named the 1999 World Food Prize Laureate. Unfortunately, Plowright died in February this year before the elimination was confirmed.
The Institute for Animal Health's (IAH) Pirbright laboratory in Surrey, where my brother spent his scientific career, developed a diagnostic kit that was used in the eradication program that began in 1994. I must ask Chris how much he knows about it, next time he phones.
Cattle plagues have recurred throughout history, often accompanying war. They hit Europe during the 18th century, with three long pandemics which took place in the periods of 1709–1720, 1742–1760, and 1768–1786. There was a major outbreak covering the whole of Britain in 1865/66. Later, an outbreak in the 1890s killed 80 to 90 percent of all cattle in Southern Africa. More recently, another rinderpest outbreak that raged across much of Africa in 1982–84 is estimated to have cost at least US$500 million in stock losses.
The rinderpest virus (RPV) is closely related to the measles and canine distemper viruses. Throughout the eighteenth century there were numerous attempts to control the disease by deliberate innoculation of the virus (a process akin to variolation in smallpox), but a true vaccine does not seem to have been developed until the South African, Sir Arnold Theiler, did so during the Boer War, 1899-1902. Theiler's son, Max received the 1951 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for developing an effective vaccine against yellow fever.
Walter Plowright, CMG, FRS, FRCVS was the British veterinary scientist whose work in Kenya led to the development of the Plowright tissue culture rinderpest vaccine, which eventually eliminated the disease worldwide. For this achievement, Plowright was named the 1999 World Food Prize Laureate. Unfortunately, Plowright died in February this year before the elimination was confirmed.
The Institute for Animal Health's (IAH) Pirbright laboratory in Surrey, where my brother spent his scientific career, developed a diagnostic kit that was used in the eradication program that began in 1994. I must ask Chris how much he knows about it, next time he phones.
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