Full title: Phylogenetic analysis of MLV sequences from longitudinally sampled Chronic Fatigue Syndrome patients suggests PCR contamination rather than viral evolution
Authors: Aris Katzourakis1, Stéphane Hué2, Paul Kellam2,3, and Greg J. Towers1,*
1 Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PS, UK
2 MRC Centre for Medical Molecular Virology, Division of Infection and Immunity, University College London, 46 Cleveland St, London W1T 4JF, UK
3 Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, Cambridge, CB10 1SA, UK
* corresponding
Publication: J. Virol. doi:10.1128/JVI.00827-11 Copyright © 2011,American Society for Microbiology and/or the Listed
Publication date: JVI Accepts, published online ahead of print on 17 August 2011
ABSTRACT
Xenotropic murine leukemia virus (XMRV) has been amplified from human prostate cancer and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) patient samples. Other studies failed to replicate these findings and suggested PCR contamination with a prostate cancer cell line, 22Rv1, as a likely source. MLV-like sequences have also been detected in CFS patients in longitudinal samples 15 years apart. Here we test whether sequence data from these samples are consistent with viral evolution. Our phylogenetic analyses strongly reject a model of within-patient evolution and demonstrate that the sequences from the first and second time points represent distinct endogenous murine retroviruses suggesting contamination.
Read the abstract on the Journal of Virology website.
