isn't biofilms what they talk about in ME/CFS too?
http://www.templehealth.org/content/news.htm?view=34&inCtx5news_id=1411&inCtx4pg=0&news=2
http://www.templehealth.org/content/news.htm?view=34&inCtx5news_id=1411&inCtx4pg=0&news=2
Now, researchers at Temple University School of Medicine (TUSM) have shown that bacterial communities known as biofilm play a role in the development of the autoimmune disease systemic lupus erythematosus — a discovery that may provide important clues about several autoimmune ailments.
(...)
Biofilm is a densely packed bacterial community that excretes proteins and other substances. Those substances form a matrix that protects the bacteria from antimicrobials, the immune system, and other stressors. Biofilms can occur in our guts, among the bacteria that help us digest. They exist as dental plaque, or arise in urinary tract infections. They also can find a home on man-made surfaces such as intravenous catheters. Central to the lupus story is a biofilm protein deposit called an amyloid. In the common gut bacteria E. coli, as well as the bacteria often responsible for severe gastrointestinal distress that accompanies food poisoning, Salmonella Typhimurium, amyloids are called curli because of their curly fiber-like appearance.
Also part of the biofilm is DNA excreted by bacteria. The Temple team discovered that when curli amyloids and DNA meet, they form remarkably durable bonds in the biofilm. When the researchers attempted to separate the DNA from these bonds using a variety of enzymes as well as chemicals, the curli wouldn't let go. Curli-DNA complexes speed up the creation of the biofilm, the researchers learned. And the Temple researchers found it is also in this composite of curli-plus-DNA that autoimmune trouble appears to arise.