Secondary structural changes of proteins in fingernails of chronic fatigue syndrome patients from Fourier-transform infrared spectra.
Sakudo, Akikazu, Kuratsune, Hirohiko, Kato, Yukiko Hakariya et al.·Clinica chimica acta; international journal of clinical chemistry·2009
Researchers used a special infrared scanner to examine fingernails from people with ME/CFS and compared them to healthy people's nails. They found that the proteins in ME/CFS patients' nails had different structures—specifically, the nails showed less of a protein structure called alpha-helix and more of a structure called beta-sheet. This suggests that ME/CFS may cause measurable changes in nail composition that could potentially be detected with this scanning technology.