Thread by @microbeminded2

@sickanddamned @__ice9 @GemzME @Cov19longtail @VirusesImmunity @MBVanElzakker Walker hi - I very much disagree that #Borrelia or #EBV are typically ” long gone” in infected patients who develop chronic symptoms.

@sickanddamned @__ice9 @GemzME @Cov19longtail @VirusesImmunity @MBVanElzakker 2/ There is a large body of literature showing that even if such #organisms cannot be found in blood, they can persist in certain tissues or the central #nervous system where they are very hard to identify clinically

@sickanddamned @__ice9 @GemzME @Cov19longtail @VirusesImmunity @MBVanElzakker 3/ This is particularly obvious w/ EBV which is a #herpesvirus. Herpesviruses almost never “clear” after #infection, and symptom resolution is due to the immune system’s ability to contain the #virus in a non-replicating state

@sickanddamned @__ice9 @GemzME @Cov19longtail @VirusesImmunity @MBVanElzakker 4/ However in many people the immune system has trouble containing EBV. For example, it take 2 min to search the literature and find studies like this which show persistent EBV in pancreas, breast, lung, uterus, prostate tumors etc: nature.com/articles/s4158…

@sickanddamned @__ice9 @GemzME @Cov19longtail @VirusesImmunity @MBVanElzakker 5/ Not only that, there are excellent papers that detail the specific EBV protein + gene expression changes that allow the virus to promote B cell tranformation tied to cancer progression: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31257153/

@sickanddamned @__ice9 @GemzME @Cov19longtail @VirusesImmunity @MBVanElzakker 6/ Those same trends apply to the study of EBV persistence in conditions like #ME/CFS. The real challenge is to understand #virus ACTIVITY: 1) what cell types has it infected? 2) what proteins is it expressing? 3) how is it hijacking host gene expression and metabolism?

@sickanddamned @__ice9 @GemzME @Cov19longtail @VirusesImmunity @MBVanElzakker 7/ To even scratch the surface of studying those topics you need blood, cerebrospinal fluid, tissue samples, autopsy studies, often collected/conducted at different time points, + an excellent grasp of the latest NGS/transcriptome technologies.

@sickanddamned @__ice9 @GemzME @Cov19longtail @VirusesImmunity @MBVanElzakker 8/ Also, EBV-associated proteins may target human tissue via “molecular mimicry.” For example, this team found that B cells infected with #EBV were capable of reacting with dozens of self + non-self antigens including albumin, renin + thyroglobulin: ashpublications.org/blood/article/…

@sickanddamned @__ice9 @GemzME @Cov19longtail @VirusesImmunity @MBVanElzakker 9/ Or you must be aware of findings this this, where the team showed that the EBV nuclear antigen 2 (EBNA2) transactivating protein occupies up to half of the risk loci for a set of seven #autoimmune disorders: nature.com/articles/s4158…

@sickanddamned @__ice9 @GemzME @Cov19longtail @VirusesImmunity @MBVanElzakker 10/ Under such conditions, the notion that EBV “clears” in patients w/ long-term symptoms, or that #viral fragments expected to easily degrade somehow drive a life-long #disease is extremely unlikely, and is at best....a major assumption