DMissa
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Now that it's published I am having a proper read. I am writing an experimental paper at the moment that is likely to have a section very relevant to some of the results (results specifically, interpretation is trickier). Still cooking but interesting.
Onto some specifics from this paper that I am not sure about:
I don't see anything about whether mitochondrial membrane potential as measured by mito red fluorescence was normalised to mitochondrial membrane mass. Doesn't seem like it? If it's not, MMP can easily reflect differences in cellular mitochondrial content and not differences in the MMP itself. Without knowing whether they have done this I don't know how to interpret this data.
"We found significantly lower lipid droplet levels in both LC and ME/CFS donors across all measured lymphocyte populations (SI Appendix, Fig. S4D). Both ME/CFS and LC males and females exhibited significantly lower lipid droplet levels (Fig. 5E), "
Measured by whole-cell fluorescence when stained by a neutral lipid dye. These dyes will light up LDs for imaging but if you're putting the whole cell through flow you're probably quantifying any neutral lipid that is getting stained - majority are probably in LDs but not all. Lymphoid cells do not have many lipid droplets relative to other cell types so the impact of this could be exacerbated in this case. I don't know enough about chemistry to judge the dye being used at a glance but it's described by the manufacturer and other papers as a neutral lipid dye so this risk seems realistic.
"One possibility is that this lymphocyte dysfunction, driven by oxidative and mitochondrial damage, acts as an “energy sink,” much as an active infection does, draining the body of its available finite energy reserves and giving rise to debilitating fatigue and other sequelae."
Is there evidence for activity- and diet-independent wasting in pwME?
Onto some specifics from this paper that I am not sure about:
I don't see anything about whether mitochondrial membrane potential as measured by mito red fluorescence was normalised to mitochondrial membrane mass. Doesn't seem like it? If it's not, MMP can easily reflect differences in cellular mitochondrial content and not differences in the MMP itself. Without knowing whether they have done this I don't know how to interpret this data.
"We found significantly lower lipid droplet levels in both LC and ME/CFS donors across all measured lymphocyte populations (SI Appendix, Fig. S4D). Both ME/CFS and LC males and females exhibited significantly lower lipid droplet levels (Fig. 5E), "
Measured by whole-cell fluorescence when stained by a neutral lipid dye. These dyes will light up LDs for imaging but if you're putting the whole cell through flow you're probably quantifying any neutral lipid that is getting stained - majority are probably in LDs but not all. Lymphoid cells do not have many lipid droplets relative to other cell types so the impact of this could be exacerbated in this case. I don't know enough about chemistry to judge the dye being used at a glance but it's described by the manufacturer and other papers as a neutral lipid dye so this risk seems realistic.
"One possibility is that this lymphocyte dysfunction, driven by oxidative and mitochondrial damage, acts as an “energy sink,” much as an active infection does, draining the body of its available finite energy reserves and giving rise to debilitating fatigue and other sequelae."
Is there evidence for activity- and diet-independent wasting in pwME?
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