Post

ME/CFS Science
@mecfsscience.org

1) Spanish researchers exposed muscle cells to serum of ME/CFS and Long Covid patients and found: - reduction in muscle contraction strength - upregulation of genes involved in protein translation - elevated oxygen consumption

22 reposts55 likes

ME/CFS Science
@mecfsscience.org

2) It looks like the 'something in the blood' hypothesis is back on the table: serum of patients caused cellular stress that serum of healthy controls did not. The sample size was really small though: serum of only 4 ME/CFS patients and 5 Long Covid patients was used.

ME/CFS Science
@mecfsscience.org

3) The researchers developed 3D skeletal muscle tissue in the lab and exposed it for 48 hours to sera of patients (ME/CFS and LC patients) or controls. They replicated the experiment a couple of times per serum sample (these are probably the white open dots in the graphs).

ME/CFS Science
@mecfsscience.org

5) The authors used RNA sequencing to get a glimpse of the activity happening in the muscle cells. There was upregulation of genes involved in protein translation and extracellular matrix and downregulation of those involved in basic organelle functions.