27/12/2025
🧬 Chronic fatigue syndrome may be written far more deeply into our genes than ever suspected.
A new analysis of genomic data from over 10,500 people with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), drawn from the DecodeME project, has uncovered 22,411 high‑risk combinations of genetic variants, built from 7555 single nucleotide polymorphisms out of more than 300,000 examined. The more of these variant clusters an individual carried, the higher their odds of developing ME/CFS, underscoring the condition’s complex, multi‑gene architecture.
By mapping these variants onto 2311 genes, researchers pinpointed 259 “core” genes most strongly linked to ME/CFS risk, a sixfold jump from the 43 genes reported just four months earlier. Many of these genes appear promising for future therapies, including drug repurposing, in a field where no specific pharmacological treatments currently exist and care largely relies on symptom management and energy pacing.
The team also compared ME/CFS genetics with those of long covid and found that about 42 per cent of the genes implicated in long covid also recur across multiple ME/CFS cohorts, suggesting the two infection‑triggered conditions are partially overlapping but distinct. Ongoing projects funded at over £1.1 million will now probe how immune dysregulation, latent viruses and the gut microbiome interact with this genetic landscape to drive long‑term, post‑exertional exhaustion.
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📄 RESEARCH PAPER
📌 Steve Gardner et al, “Multi‑locus genetic architecture and shared aetiology of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Long COVID,” medRxiv (2025)
