DecodeME: The World’s Largest ME/CFS Study

Myalgic encephalomyelitis / chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is a common, disabling illness. It affects more females than males, and in most cases, starts after an infection. Little is known about the biological mechanisms that cause ME/CFS, despite many attempts to uncover them, and it has no effective treatments. To understand ME/CFS better, our study, DecodeME, compared the DNA of 15,579 people with ME/CFS with the DNA of 259,909 people without ME/CFS, all of European descent. DNA is a molecule that makes up our genes. Our genes make many different molecules called proteins, each of which does very specific things in the body. Finding variations in genes that differ between people with or without a disease can therefore point to what causes it. We found that people with ME/CFS are more likely to carry certain DNA differences in eight regions of their genome, and so these variants tell us about possible biological causes of ME/CFS. However, as these differences are also often found in people without ME/CFS they cannot cleanly separate who is at risk and who is not, and therefore do not provide a definitive test. Most of these regions contain several genes. Our methods did not allow us to conclusively locate the ones most relevant to ME/CFS in each region, but public data allowed us to pick out the most likely ones. Three of the most likely genes produce proteins that respond to an infection. Another likely gene is related to chronic pain. None are related to depression or anxiety. We found nothing to explain why more females than males get ME/CFS. Overall, DecodeME shows that ME/CFS is partly caused by genes related to the immune and nervous systems.

• Type: Other
• Archive: European Genome-phenome Archive (EGA)