AI Article Synopsis

  • The analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) variants in ME/CFS patients showed no significant links between haplogroups or SNPs and the disease status.
  • A commentary criticized this study, incorrectly claiming it associated mtDNA haplogroups with ME/CFS and requesting additional experiments that were beyond the study's scope.
  • Despite the criticism, the original study did find significant associations between mtDNA variants and specific symptoms and their severity, even if no connection to overall disease status was established.

Article Abstract

Earlier this year, we described an analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) variants in myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME)/chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) patients and healthy controls. We reported that there was no significant association of haplogroups or singe nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with disease status. Nevertheless, a commentary about our paper appeared (Finsterer and Zarrouk-Mahjoub. J Transl Med14:182, 2016) that criticized the association of mtDNA haplogroups with ME/CFS, a conclusion that was absent from our paper. The aforementioned commentary also demanded experiments that were outside of the scope of our study, ones that we had suggested as follow-up studies. Because they failed to consult a published and cited report describing the cohorts we studied, the authors also cast aspersions on the method of selection of cases for inclusion. We reiterate that we observed statistically significant association of mtDNA variants with particular symptoms and their severity, though we observed no association with disease status.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5175376PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12967-016-1104-5DOI Listing

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