Onlamoon, Nattawat, Das Gupta, Jaydip, Sharma, Prachi et al. · Journal of virology · 2011 · DOI
This study examined whether XMRV, a virus that had been proposed as a potential cause of chronic fatigue syndrome, could establish persistent infection in primates similar to humans. Researchers injected five macaques with XMRV and tracked the virus over 9 months, finding that it created a long-lasting infection that spread to multiple organs and tissues, even when it disappeared from the blood. The virus affected different cell types in different organs and triggered some immune responses, but these responses were weak and didn't effectively clear the infection.
This study provides experimental evidence that XMRV can establish persistent, tissue-resident infection with chronic reactivation—a pattern relevant to understanding proposed viral mechanisms in ME/CFS. The finding of organ-specific tropism and weak immune clearance may help explain why some proposed viral causes of ME/CFS persist despite apparent immune responses.
This study does not prove that XMRV causes ME/CFS in humans, nor does it establish that the infection pattern observed in macaques mirrors natural human infection. It also does not demonstrate that viral persistence, by itself, causes the specific symptoms of ME/CFS. The study shows what XMRV *can* do in primate tissues, not what role it plays in human disease pathogenesis.
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
Onlamoon, Nattawat, Das Gupta, Jaydip, Sharma, Prachi, Rogers, Kenneth, Suppiah, Suganthi, Rhea, Jeanne, et al. (2011). Infection, viral dissemination, and antibody responses of rhesus macaques exposed to the human gammaretrovirus XMRV.. Journal of virology. https://doi.org/10.1128/JVI.02411-10
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-onlamoon-2011-infection-viral,
author = {Onlamoon, Nattawat and Das Gupta, Jaydip and Sharma, Prachi and Rogers, Kenneth and Suppiah, Suganthi and Rhea, Jeanne and Molinaro, Ross J and Gaughan, Christina and Dong, Beihua and Klein, Eric A and Qiu, Xiaoxing and Devare, Sushil and Schochetman, Gerald and Hackett, John and Silverman, Robert H and Villinger, François},
title = {Infection, viral dissemination, and antibody responses of rhesus macaques exposed to the human gammaretrovirus XMRV.},
journal = {Journal of virology},
year = {2011},
doi = {10.1128/JVI.02411-10},
note = {PubMed: 21325416},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/onlamoon-2011-infection-viral},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-30. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/onlamoon-2011-infection-viral
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