Scientists identify shared biological pathways behind chronic fatigue across five illnesses

October 1, 2026 at 05:00 AM2 min

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Researchers at the University of East Anglia and Oxford BioDynamics have identified a possible biological connection linking chronic fatigue across long Covid, PTSD, ME/CFS, rheumatoid arthritis, and multiple sclerosis. The study, published in the Journal of Translational Medicine, found that these conditions may disrupt the same underlying biological systems despite different triggers.

Key Facts

The study was published in the Journal of Translational Medicine.
Researchers used Oxford BioDynamics' EpiSwitch Orion platform to study the genome's three-dimensional organization.
The five conditions studied are long Covid, PTSD, ME/CFS, rheumatoid arthritis, and multiple sclerosis.
Lead researcher Prof Dmitry Pshezhetskiy is from UEA's Norwich Medical School.

The Study

Researchers at the University of East Anglia and Oxford BioDynamics identified a possible biological connection that could help explain profound exhaustion across long Covid and PTSD. The study was published in the Journal of Translational Medicine. The findings suggest that chronic fatigue syndrome, long Covid, PTSD, rheumatoid arthritis, and multiple sclerosis may disrupt some of the same underlying biological systems. The conditions can begin in very different ways, including viral infection, psychological trauma, and autoimmune activity.

Methodology

Instead of examining DNA only as a linear genetic sequence, the UEA researchers used Oxford BioDynamics' EpiSwitch Orion platform to study the genome's three-dimensional organization. The technology is designed to investigate how DNA folds inside cells and how distant sections of the genome can come into contact and influence gene activity. The work was computational rather than based on newly collected patient samples. Researchers combined previously published genomic information for long Covid, PTSD, rheumatoid arthritis, and multiple sclerosis from existing genome-wide association studies with 3D genomic data from an earlier study of people with ME/CFS.

Findings

When the researchers applied Orion to all five conditions, they found that genetic changes that initially looked largely unrelated could connect to the same regulatory networks. Prof Pshezhetskiy said: "We expected to find at least some overlap in genes across the conditions. But we actually found the opposite."