Scientists have ruled out a mouse-based virus as being responsible for chronic fatigue syndrome, or ME.
Claims of a viral link published a year ago offered new hope to people with the syndrome – which has never been proved to be a single medical disease.
A year ago researchers reported a link between XMRV and the disease – but a new study claims the findings probably came from contaminated samples.
Professor Greg Towers, of University College London, UK, said: "Our conclusion is quite simple: XMRV is not the cause of chronic fatigue syndrome.
"All our evidence shows that the sequences from the virus genome in cell culture have contaminated human chronic fatigue syndrome and prostate cancer samples.
"It is vital to understand that we are not saying chronic fatigue syndrome does not have a virus cause – we cannot answer that yet – but we know it is not this virus causing it."
The researchers say it is quite common to find laboratory samples contaminated with XMRV – xenotropic murine leukaemia virus-related virus. And they add that their detailed studies of the virus show it does not show any "scars" from infecting humans.
They say their findings, reported in the journal Retrovirology, explain why nobody else has been able to reproduce the research from last October.
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