Gene Shuffling, was: Re: HHV6A and the State of CFS Research/Rich

[Guest guest]

Hi, Katrina and the group.

I hope a will also see this, because she has asked me about

Urnovitz's work, also.

I dug up the Urnovitz paper from 1999 that caused the stir about

gene shuffling in CFS. If you want to read it, go to PubMed, type

this number in the search box: 10225831, and hit Go. You will get

the abstract. Then click on the colored symbol, and you will get

the full paper, which you can print if you want to.

What Urnovitz did was to analyze the blood serum of veterans with

Gulf War Illnesses for RNA, and in particular, he analyzed two of

the larger RNA pieces and found that they incorporated segments of

RNA that corresponded to the DNA in chromosome 22 at the location

22q11.2. However, these segments were not in the same sequence as

in the chromosome. Hence, there was " gene shuffling " involved in

forming these pieces of RNA.

Now, the important point here is that this involved RNA found in the

blood serum, not DNA found in the germ cells (from the testicles) of

the veterans. That is a very important distinction which I think

was missed by a lot of people who heard about Urnovitz's work. It

had nothing to do with changing the inheritable genes of the

veterans.

So where did this RNA come from, and what is its significance? Most

likely, it came from the breakdown of white blood cells. Normally

cells die by apoptosis, which is programmed cell death. In this

case, arrangements are made to fairly neatly break down RNA, DNA and

proteins into their elemental pieces so that they can be recycled.

Cells can also die by necrosis, which is messy. One or the other of

these processes in white blood cells must leave some fragments of

RNA intact in the blood serum for a while, and that's probably where

these pieces come from that Urnovitz studied.

So why do they exhibit gene shuffling? It appears that certain

parts of the genome that code for elements of the immune system are

capable of rearranging or shuffling. Apparently this is a built-in

capability for use when the organism encounters a threat in the form

of a pathogen or toxin with which it is not " familiar. " It

therefore goes through a randomization process which may come up

with a new sequence that can be used to recognize the invader and

knock it out. This type of process has been known for a long time

to occur in T cell development. It many also occur in the formation

of antibodies. This is a built-in protective mechanism.

Again, I emphasize that this process as studied by Urnovitz

does not involve changes in heritable genes. It's true that gene

shuffling in germ cell DNA can produce mutations, but these are very

rare. They occur much less frequently than the two more common

mechanisms, which themselves are rare. The first is point mutations

such as the single nucleotide polymorphisms that Amy Yasko deals

with primarily, and the other is deletions or repeats of large

sections of DNA. Amy does characterize some deletions, as in the

ACE enzyme gene and one of the glutathione transferase genes.

So I come back to my original point. The genes just don't change

very often, and we can be pretty certain that the ones we have were

inherited from our parents. We cannot change them. We may be able

to do something about the degree to which they are expressed, and we

can also compensate for them at the biochemical level, which is what

Amy Yasko does with her treatments, and what the DAN! project does

as well, though in a less specifically targeted fashion.

Rich

> > >

> > >

> > > I came across this interview with Regush from quite

> awhile

> > > back. Some of you may remember him and his book " The Virus

> Within " .

> > >

> > > There are some extremely interesting points about HHV6A

> specifically and

> > > the state of CFS Science in general. Like many older articles

and

> > > studies, I find it almost astonishingly relevant today.

> > >

> > > Some of the positive advances he speaks of are ocurring today,

> but are

> > > not getting much light in the Public or our communities. Some

of

> the

> > > negative aspects of CFS Science he refers to are more dominant

> than

> > > ever.

> > >

> > > Nicolas Regush was an investigative Medical Reporter for NBC

> news who

> > > spent a great deal of time investigating CFS. Before his death

> in 2004,

> > > he founded " Red Flags Daily " , which has a very interesting

> website.

> > >

> > >

> > > ----------

> > >

> > > http://listserv.nodak.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0003C & L=co-

> cure & P=R1995

> > >

> > >

> > >