Japanese patients with chronic fatigue syndrome are negative for known retrovirus infections

Although chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is known to be the syndrome that begins with an acute flu-like illness that may be due to the exposure to an infectious agent, there has been no convincing evidence on the causative agents. Recently, human T-lymphotropic virus type II (HTLV-II)-like virus has been reported to be associated with the CFS by using HTLV Western blot analysis and polymerase chain reaction. However, some investigators could not detect HTLV-II by indirect immunofluorescence analysis. Lately, CFS patients have been reported in Japan. We detected all 30 tested patients with CFS were seronegative for HTLV-II, HTLV-I and HIV by specific peptide ELISA and Western blot. Further, PCR analysis was negative for HTLV-II and retrovirus was not detected by coculture method with patients' PBMC. Thus, known human retrovirus infections do not cause a CFS in Japan.