Thread by @DeryaTR_

I will begin unpacking our recent study on #MECFS using AI approaches. We think this will have a profound impact on both understanding the disease & revealing actionable targets for potential treatments. This approach can also be applied as precision medicine for chronic diseases

Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is a complex, long-term illness that affects multiple body systems, characterized by severe, persistent fatigue that is not alleviated by rest and worsens with physical or mental exertion. It can affect anyone, regardless of age, gender, or ethnicity, though it is more commonly diagnosed in women & people aged 40-60 years.

For this study, we recruited more than 100 patients & healthy controls & collected blood & fecal samples once a year for 3-4 years. We then performed immune profiling, metabolomics, microbiome analysis for all samples, collecting thousands of data points. biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

For this project, our goal was to perform a large-scale topological analysis, which means trying to determine links between different biological compartments such as the immune system and metabolism. We hypothesized that these topological networks are disrupted in #MECFS

The quality of the data was very important, so we spent great effort to be meticulous about data collection. We generated hundreds of immune parameters, thousands of metabolites, & sequenced millions of bacteria from each subject.

Remarkably, we found major disturbances in #MECFS patients in immune metabolism & microbiome. But the key point of the AI analysis was establishing links between compartment perturbations. This is very important because it establishes mechanistic frameworks and actionable targets

This omics-based topological analysis is also important at the individual level. While there are common features that are disturbed among patients, there is also a great deal of individual variation. Thus, this is the basis for personalized diagnosis and treatment approaches.

Indeed, we are now preparing another major paper that fine-tunes metabolites to immune cells links & all the way to symptoms. We provide several key pathways that we think can be explored as potential therapeutic targets. This is something that was direly needed for #MECFS

There are, of course, many details to discuss, and we hope to do that in the near future. A final point for now: there is no longer any doubt about the major biological disruptions that cause #MECFS

Amazingly, most of our findings make sense and confirm our multiple hypothesis.