I am a bit slow on the uptake sometimes but I have just realised this paper has a reference to the 2015 systematic review of cytokine responses authored by PD White et al (ref 18), as well as the 2017 paper by Montoya et al (ref 19) as linked below.
"Cytokine signature associated with disease severity in chronic fatigue syndrome patients". Montoya et al.
https://www.pnas.org/content/114/34/E7150
Both of which identified raised transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) to be associated with ME/CFS, which seems to have been the basis for this approach.
Judging from the
wiki, knowledge about TGF-β is incomplete but one of the things which is mentioned ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transforming_growth_factor_beta#T_lymphocytes
TGF-β1 plays a role in the induction from CD4+ T cells of both
induced Tregs (iTregs), which have a regulatory function, and
Th17 cells, which secrete pro-inflammatory cytokines.
Which is what this paper is all about. So it all seems to stem from the raised TGF-β observations. They appear to be following the rabbit hole as it were, to see where it leads.
I do take your opinion into consideration very seriously
@Jonathan Edwards but from my own experiences I find there is something which needs explaining wrt raised allergies combined with recurrent virus on ME onset and the ideas of Dr Paul Cheney about TH2 shift and those concerning mimicry in this paper do at least address this kind of observation, which precious few other papers do so I think there might be something to this direction of travel, even if the details might need to be worked out very carefully.
Mimicry is a tricky one. Its very hard to prove if you consider cross-reaction does not prove mimicry. But speaking as a zoologist, given the wonderful examples of macroscopic mimicry in the animal and plant kingdoms I find it a credible idea because of the way evolution evidently does work through natural selection to produce mimicry for visual and other senses due to the interaction of organisms, so I dont see why the same principles of natural selection would not apply at a microscopic level due to the interactions of immune cells and pathogens. So I see it as credible but not easy to prove definitively, which I agree must be done before it would be valid to consider interventions based on the idea.
