Fig. 3

Global correlation pattern of chronically fatigued patients compared to HC. Global correlation pattern by means of average clustering, using the most significantly different proteins and metabolites (FDR adjusted P ≤ 0.05) in both QFS and CFS, used as a reference for a large HC group of 318 individuals (www.humanfunctionalgenomics.org). The global correlation pattern exposes acetohexamide, sphingosine 1-phosphate, l-cysteinylglycine, l-cysteine, and 2-(2,4-dihydroxy-5-m as metabolites of particular interest as they positively correlate with inflammatory proteins. HC healthy controls, QFS Q fever fatigue syndrome, CFS chronic fatigue syndrome