A potential diagnostic test for ME/CFS based on cell electrophysiology

Hope, potentially.

There is currently no widely available, accurate diagnostic marker for ME/CFS. However, growing evidence suggests that the electrical characteristics of white blood cells could form the basis of a low-cost, reliable diagnostic test for the disease.

In 2019, Prof. Ron Davis and his team developed a nanoelectronics test that found a difference in the impedance of white blood cells taken from people with ME/CFS compared with those from control subjects.

In 2023, this work was continued by Prof. Robert Dorey, Dr Fatima Labeed, Krista Clarke and colleagues at the University of Surrey, in a study jointly funded by ME Research UK and the ME Association.

White blood cells from people with ME/CFS, people with multiple sclerosis and healthy volunteers were put into a salty solution for one-and-a half hours. The change in the electrical properties of these cells after the salt treatment was significantly different in the ME/CFS samples compared with the other groups, supporting their potential as a diagnostic tool.

Two biomarkers showed potential for distinguishing ME/CFS patients from other groups: cytoplasm conductivity and zeta potential. Very simply put, cytoplasm conductivity is an indicator of how easily electrical current can flow within a cell, while zeta potential is related to the electrical force needed to move a charge across the cell membrane

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