Virus Hijacks Mitochodria

This is a short interpretation of a paper I (sort of) read yesterday (I skipped around a lot and read the short version of it on another web site).

"To spread, nervous system viruses sabotage cell, hijack transportation" by Morgan Kelly, 
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-nervous-viruses-sabotage-cell-hijack.html

So here is the crux of the study:

• Virus floods the mitochodria with calcium
• Mitochodria stop moving and release one of its transport proteins to virus
• Virus can now move using the stolen transport protein to invade nervous system
• Mitochodria are frozen in place since they can no longer move due to missing transport protein

WARNING:  This study was only done in rats with only the herpes simplex virus (HSV-1) so it is too early to tell if this happens with other viruses.  However, this would explain a lot of the mitochodria dysfunction seen in CFS.  The author even suggests this might be the mechanism occurring in polio and West Nile.

Some cool pics/vids to help explain this:

http://s.ph-cdn.com/newman/gfx/news/hires/2012/tospreadnerv.jpg

Harvard has two amazing vids that are animations of what goes on inside cells.  I wish they had narration so that I knew what was what and what is going on.  However, start with "The Inner Life of the Cell" which show the assembly of the microtubule and the Kinesin-1 protein hauling a cell along the tubule.  Then, for giggles, watch "The Mitochodria" which shows a mitochodria working properly.  They actually show the lipid rafts on the mito wall that allow other cells to pass through the wall.
http://multimedia.mcb.harvard.edu/
To see both vids you might have to click on the Mito one first, then exit, which dumps you to the page that has both vids on it.

Alternatively you can watch this vid of the animator explaining his work at a TED conference.  It has the clip of the Kinesin walking along the microtubule towards the end of the talk.



When you are done with those vids, go to the paper itself and watch the embedded vid that shows normal mito running around and then mito after viral infection.  http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-nervous-viruses-sabotage-cell-hijack.html

The Lipkin Study

The most current news I could find on the Lipkin study: http://phoenixrising.me/?p=5778

Please note that it is dated prior to the implosion of WPI so I'm not sure if the study will continue as described.

Phoenix Rising

Phoenix Rising is one of my favorite information sites for CFS and XMRV.  It has been down on and off for a couple of weeks now.  I finally managed to look at it again today only to discover it has been totally redesigned.  It looks fabulous.  If you have some time and want to read some informative articles go check it out.

Grand Rounds

Found this link over at CFS Patient Advocate.  It is a video of CFS Grand Rounds by Dr. Phillip K. Peterson, who used to run a CFS clinic in MN prior to retiring.  Good stuff!

Newsflash!

Great articles in the Wall Street Journal on CFS:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704005404576176823580854478.html?mod=wsj_share_facebook

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704507404576179031979295592.html?mod=wsj_share_facebook

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2011/02/17/xmrv-study-shows-virus-can-cause-persistent-infection-in-monkeys/

Apparently there is also an article in the NYT on the definition of CFS but you have to log in to read it so I haven't seen it.  I refuse to sign in to read news articles.  Here is the link if you want to take a look:
https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/health/research/08fatigue.html&OQ=_rQ3D1

Addendum: Here is a working link to the NYT article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/health/research/08fatigue.html?_r=4&hpw

I just found a great Wiki site on XMRV
http://www.mecfsforums.com/wiki/Main_Page
tons of information burried on this site.  Great list of papers.  The case definitions need a bit of work.  Don't forget this is a Wiki site so the accuracy of the information isn't guaranteed.

This talk on XMRV was just given last weekend during the conference on retroviruses in Boston:
http://app2.capitalreach.com/esp1204/servlet/tc?c=10164&cn=retro&s=20445&&dp=player.jsp&e=13744&mediaType=podiumVideo

The first issue of FM-Chronic Pain Report by the National Fibromyalgia Association:
http://www.nfmcpa.org/media/newsletters/issue1/

XMRV Treatments

Wonderful interview with the ladies of WPI.  The best news comes at the end of the video; they are starting to understand how XMRV is making us sick, they are opening a clinic and they might have treatments within a year.  How awesome is that!!   That would be the best Christmas present ever!

HIV Cure?

An American who has been infected with AIDS for years and developed a type of resistant leukemia under went stem cell treatment in Germany.  They injected him with stem cells from another patient with identical blood and immune system type except the donor is naturally HIV resistant.  They don't have

"a cellular doorway, called CCR5, that the AIDS virus uses to get into the cells it infects"

Once the new stem cells integrated into the patient he also became CCR5 deficient and hence the AIDS virus no longer had access to his cells.  The initial injection was done in 2007 and they only recently declared him cured (with the caveat that they can't really tell until they do a PCR on his cells post mortem).  Here is the news article.

Now here is the reason I'm excited about this.  Although this is a preliminary test and it was only performed on one patient and it is VERY dangerous procedure (high possibility of death), the dude survived and is AIDS free as far as they can tell.  The docs figured out the chemical key that AIDS uses, found a population of CCR5 deficient donors and performed a stem cell transplant that worked!  But how does that relate to CFS?  I'm wondering if XMRV possesses the same chemical key, CCR5?  If so, the same stem cell treatment might work.  If XMRV uses a different chemical key, are there any people deficient in the XMRV receptor, i.e. does there exist a population that can not catch XMRV?  If so, can stem cell therapy be used to transplant cells from the resistant population to the sick population?  Enquiring minds want to know.

XMRV News

Be forewarned, I'm not a biologist never mind a geneticist.  Here is a link to an interesting article with papers cited regarding how XMRV functions in the body.  I believe that the studies have only been done in animals so may not work quite the same in humans.  If you have any questions please go to the original documents.  Like I said, I play with lasers not microbes.  So here goes....

• XMRV latches on to other viruses.
• These viruses are very specific virus types.
• XMRV holds the chemical key to open 80% of our cells.
• XMRV makes perfect copies of itself.
• XMRV doesn't need to mutate to hide since it latches on to other viruses which makes the new molecule invisible to the immune system.
• Since XMRV is a chemical key both it and its piggybacked virus can invade 80% of our cells.
• This invasion can cause a variety of symptoms because it can latch on to different viruses.  Hence the different types of CFS.
• This invasion can cause cancers: currently there is some evidence linking XMRV to both prostate and breast cancers.
• Since it can latch on to a variety of viruses, illness can have different triggers such as:   HHV6, EBV, etc  (even Lyme maybe?? my guess here)
• This also explains why people that have volunteered to be human guinea pigs and are taking antivirals are not having identical responses to the various drugs available to them from the HIV arsenal. 
• Because XMRV has essentially mutated to include one of a variety of viruses, the only 'cure' would be a drug cocktail engineered to the specific XMRV+virus hybrid that has invaded the host.

XMRV Lecture Notes from the NJCFS Conference

This is one of the best summaries on Dr. Judy Mikovits' lecture I have found to date.  For the original article, click here.  This blogger has posted summaries from other lectures from the same conference.  Sue Jackson also attended the conference and has posted notes in her blog.  The conference proceedings will be available on DVD in about six weeks.


"In the first part of the lecture Mikovits:
-drove quickly through the history of various published papers that establish the association of a family of gamma retroviruses with ME/CFS.
-went over familiar ground with the problems of the negative studies, and stated her arguments against contamination
-cited "greater sequence diversity than originally observed", stating that "Variation is our friend"
-twice cited Sandy Ruschetti's importance in this research, including a key role in isolating the virus,
-spoke of how hormones and inflammatory cytokines turns on the viruses
-speculated about reservoirs, where the virus hides, where it doesn't
-gave examples of teasing out XMRV with different testing devices.
-stated that "sample processing is everything",
-stated that the association of XMRV-related viruses is stronger in ME/CFS than in prostate cancer
-reiterated that the WPI is the only one who has isolated virus from ME/CFS specimens.
-talked about subgroup P
-indicated that X -variant and P-variant are two independent viruses
-found x and found p in individually cloned viruses
-stated that XMRV and its variants is not a mouse virus
-stated that this is not a recombination, but a new human retrovirus
In the second Part of the lecture she presented data on the XMRV work being done in UK. Along the way she mentioned:
-50 UK samples went to two independent labs, each tested multiple ways
-David Bell (recently retired) is working as a clinical consultant, presumably with the WPI
-ME/CFS is not a woman's disease
-Ruschetti cultured samples from Alter cohort and found x-variant in all of them
-found complete concordance between viral isolation and detection of antibody reactivity in UK plasma
-Lo's primers picked out negatives as positives
-Conclusion: found evidence of HMRV in >70% ME/CFS meeting CCC criteria
-1st generation testing will get better.
Finally Dr. Judy talked of XMRV-related virus in family and other illness
-presented Cheney's patient XMRV information
-showed family trees with illness association
-detection of XMRV in 16 of 17 families with neuroimmune illness
- "Methods matter!"
-HMRV research is in it infancy as much more research needs to be done."
Posted on CFS Patient Advocate Blog

A Simpler Explaination

Just found this post at Phoenix Rising. It is a great explaination of the two studies that have just been published that found MLV viruses in 80% of CFS patients. For the entire article with comments and links to other papers click here.



MLV related viruses - a simpler explanation
by Bob
on August 30th, 2010 at 07:36 PM
11 Comments

I've already posted a blog about MLV-related viruses but I thought it might be quite difficult to follow for some people who can't follow the science easily... So I've now written this shortened, simpler, version, which hopefully might be easier to grasp. (feedback welcome.)


MLV = Mouse Leukaemia virus

MLV's are mouse retroviruses that cause cancer in certain mice.

Judy Mikovits and Harvey Alter have discovered a variety of MLV-related viruses in ME/CFS patients.

These MLV-related viruses are not MLV's (mouse viruses) but they are closely related to them.

The only difference between Alter's viruses and Mikovits' viruses are that they are related to slightly different types of MLV's.

Judy Mikovits' viruses are related to Xenotropic MLV's, and so they are 'Xenotropic MLV-related viruses'.

Whereas Alter's viruses are related to Polytropic MLV's and so they are 'Polytropic MLV-related viruses'.

So the only difference between them is the use of the terms 'Xenotropic' and 'Polytropic'.

The terms 'Xenotropic' and 'Polytropic' indicate a slightly different behaviour of a virus.


XMRV = 'Xenotropic MLV-related virus':
X = Xenotropic
M = MLV (Murine Leukaemia Virus)
R = Related
V = Virus


Alter's viruses are 'Polytropic MLV-related viruses', and so he could have named them 'PMRV' (instead of XMRV). He hasn't named them PMRV, yet. Instead, he refers to them as Polytropic MLV-related viruses, or just MLV-related viruses.

All of the viruses found so far in the two papers, are MLV-related viruses, and they are Human Gamma Retroviruses (HGRV's), which is an umbrella term.


'Xenotropic' means that a virus cannot infect, or replicate in, its original host species (i.e. mice), but it can jump to another species (i.e. humans) where it can become a whole, complete, replicating virus.

'Polytropic' means that a virus can infect both its original host species (i.e. mice) and it can jump to another species (i.e. humans).

The difference in the meaning of the two terms is why the new viruses that Alter has detected cannot be called XMRV. Alter's viruses are related to Polytropic MLV's, not Xenotropic MLV's.

It remains to be seen how all of these new viruses, or variants, will be labelled and categorised.
XMRV's (more than one variant of XMRV has now been detected by Judy Mikovits) are clearly a subset of a larger group of viruses (MLV-related viruses and Human Gamma Retroviruses).
We might end up with a new collective name for all of these MLV-related viruses.

Are Alter's viruses and Mikovits' viruses different variants of the same virus, or are they totally different viruses?
Obviously there are differences, but the similarities seem to be more significant than the differences.

Alter says that these differences are exactly what he expects to see in a retrovirus, so these observed virus mutations support the type of human retrovirus infection that Mikovits' XMRV research indicated.
Alter says that the Hep C and HIV viruses exhibit the same pattern of variants as this new type of human retrovirus that Alter and Mikovits have found in ME/CFS patients.

Indications from Alter are that all these viruses might be referred to as variants of a single disease associated virus, just the same as the multiple Hep C virus variants are often referred to as the Hep C virus (singular).

Of course, it might turn out that these retroviruses are also associated with other diseases, such as Fibromyalgia, Gulf War Syndrome, MS, Autism.

The Quest for the CFS Marker

The main reason I don't have a diganosis yet is that there is no marker for CFS. To obtain this diagnosis you have to have a convergence of paranormal events: a doc that believes this is a legitimate disease, the abscence of other diseases and meet the CDC criteria. So far I've got two out of three. Right now I've only been sick just shy of four months instead of the CDC required six.

The Whittemore Peterson Institute did a study that linked CFS with XMRV, a weird retrovirus and today a study was published by the NIH/FDA that backed this study up. This has several implications: they are on the right track, XMRV might be a cause/trigger, it may be useful as a marker. I now have some hope that I might have legitimacy, a diagnosis and possibly a cure (or at least symptom relief/control) within my lifetime. How cool is that??