Milivojevic, Milica, Che, Xiaoyu, Bateman, Lucinda et al. · PloS one · 2020 · DOI
Researchers studied blood proteins in ME/CFS patients and healthy controls to look for disease markers. They found that certain immune-related proteins, particularly immunoglobulin proteins (which are part of the immune system), were abnormal in ME/CFS patients and could help identify who has the disease. The results suggest ME/CFS involves an overactive or dysregulated immune response.
This study provides objective biomarkers that could improve ME/CFS diagnosis, which currently relies on symptom assessment alone. Identifying immune dysregulation as a core feature may guide future treatment strategies targeting B cell dysfunction. The finding that proteomic profiles differ between ME/CFS with and without IBS suggests biological heterogeneity worth investigating further.
This study does not prove that abnormal immunoglobulins cause ME/CFS—only that they are associated with the disease. It does not establish whether these immune changes represent the primary disease mechanism or are secondary consequences of the illness. The study cannot be generalized to the broader ME/CFS population without validation in larger, more diverse cohorts.
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
Milivojevic, Milica, Che, Xiaoyu, Bateman, Lucinda, Cheng, Aaron, Garcia, Benjamin A, Hornig, Mady, et al. (2020). Plasma proteomic profiling suggests an association between antigen driven clonal B cell expansion and ME/CFS.. PloS one. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0236148
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-milivojevic-2020-plasma-proteomic,
author = {Milivojevic, Milica and Che, Xiaoyu and Bateman, Lucinda and Cheng, Aaron and Garcia, Benjamin A and Hornig, Mady and Huber, Manuel and Klimas, Nancy G and Lee, Bohyun and Lee, Hyoungjoo and Levine, Susan and Montoya, Jose G and Peterson, Daniel L and Komaroff, Anthony L and Lipkin, W Ian},
title = {Plasma proteomic profiling suggests an association between antigen driven clonal B cell expansion and ME/CFS.},
journal = {PloS one},
year = {2020},
doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0236148},
note = {PubMed: 32692761},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/milivojevic-2020-plasma-proteomic},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-26. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/milivojevic-2020-plasma-proteomic
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