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1) We wrote a new article on cell and tissue analysis using genetic data. For ME/CFS, the results strongly point to neurons. One of the top hits is the medium spiny neuron, located in a region deep inside the brain called the striatum.

2) How does this analysis work? It’s relatively simple: we use DNA results from genetic studies such as DecodeME and match them with RNA databases that give an indication of gene expression in different tissues and cell types.

4) The graph below shows how powerful this technique is. It picks out the relevant cell type in multiple diseases: immune cells in rheumatoid arthritis and asthma, neurons in schizophrenia and epilepsy and pancreatic cells for diabetes.

5) These results were from a landmark 2018 study by Finucane et al. Adding ME/CFS to this analysis pipeline gives results that strongly point to the central nervous system. Using an immunological dataset (ImmGenn) gave no significant hits.

6) Multiple analyses and genetic data sources now point in the direction of the central nervous system. Either the genetic studies like DecodeME are way off (possible but unlikely), or this is a region (the brain) and cell type (neurons) that is key to ME/CFS.