NEW YORK, N.Y. (June 9, 2010) – Autism Speaks, the world's largest autism science and advocacy organization, and an international consortium of researchers, along with participating families, joined together to announce new autism genetic discoveries from the second phase of its collaborative study: the Autism Genome Project. The results were published today in the journal Nature, one of the world's most respected peer-reviewed scientific publications.
The Autism Genome Project (AGP) is an international autism genetics research consortium co-funded by Autism Speaks, the Medical Research Council, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Health Research Board (Ireland), Genome Canada, the Hilibrand Foundation and Autistica. Based on analysis of high-density genotyping data collected from 1,000 individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 1,300 without ASD, the AGP reported that individuals with autism tend to carry more submicroscopic insertions and deletions called copy number variants (CNV) in their genome than controls. Some of these CNV appeared to be inherited, while others are considered de novo, or new, because they are found only in affected offspring and not in the parents. Taken together, more of the CNVs disrupt genes, previously reported to be implicated in intellectual disability without autism or in autism, than expected by chance.
The new AGP study also identified new autism susceptibility genes including SHANK2, SYNGAP1, DLGAP2 and the X-linked DDX53–PTCHD1 locus. Some of these genes belong to synapse-related pathways, while others are involved in cellular proliferation, projection and motility, and intracellular signaling, functional targets that may lead to the development of new treatment approaches.
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These findings further support an emerging consensus within the scientific community that autism is caused in part by many "rare variants" or genetic changes found in less than one percent of the population. While each of these variants may only account for a small fraction of the cases, collectively they are starting to account for a greater percentage of individuals in the autism community, as well as providing insights into possible common pathogenic mechanisms. The overlap between autism susceptibility genes and genes previously implicated in intellectual disabilities further supports the hypothesis that at least some genetic risk factors are shared by different psychiatric developmental disabilities. Finally, identification of these biological pathways points to new avenues of scientific investigation, as well as potential targets for the development of novel treatments.
"Piece by piece, we are discovering genetic mutations that can cause autism. These findings will provide answers for families about what contributed to their autism," said Andy Shih, Ph.D., Autism Speaks vice president for scientific affairs. "Furthermore, as we have learned from examples involving other genetic risk factors of autism (e.g., Fragile X, Rett, TSC), these genetic findings help us understand the underlying biology of autism, which can lead to the development of novel treatments."
Source: Autism Speaks