Kumar, Abhishek, Peppercorn, Katie, Kleffmann, Torsten · Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2025 · DOI
This study describes a detailed scientific method for examining proteins in immune cells taken from the blood of ME/CFS patients. Researchers used advanced technology called SWATH-MS (a type of mass spectrometry) to identify and measure thousands of proteins at once. The paper explains the step-by-step process they used so that other researchers can use the same method to find protein abnormalities in ME/CFS.
ME/CFS lacks clear diagnostic biomarkers, and understanding protein abnormalities in immune cells is critical for uncovering disease mechanisms. By providing a standardized, detailed methodology that other laboratories can implement, this work enables consistent, comparable proteomic research across institutions. This could accelerate the discovery of protein-based biomarkers for diagnosis and potentially identify new treatment targets.
This is a methods paper, not a clinical study, so it does not report actual findings about which specific proteins are abnormal in ME/CFS patients or prove that any particular protein causes or contributes to the disease. The paper does not establish disease mechanisms or validate biomarkers. It also does not compare ME/CFS patients to healthy controls or other patient groups.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
The first block is for the primary paper and is the citation you should use in research work. The atlas-snapshot line only applies if you are specifically referring to this atlas’s reading of the paper on the date shown.
Primary citation
Kumar, Abhishek, Peppercorn, Katie, & Kleffmann, Torsten (2025). Quantitative Proteomics on Immune Cells of ME/CFS Patients Using SWATH-MS.. Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-4498-0_8
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-kumar-2025-quantitative-proteomics,
author = {Kumar, Abhishek and Peppercorn, Katie and Kleffmann, Torsten},
title = {Quantitative Proteomics on Immune Cells of ME/CFS Patients Using SWATH-MS.},
journal = {Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.)},
year = {2025},
doi = {10.1007/978-1-0716-4498-0_8},
note = {PubMed: 40372681},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/kumar-2025-quantitative-proteomics},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-27. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/kumar-2025-quantitative-proteomics
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