One of the largest genome-wide screens of methyl tags in postmortem brains has found that people with autism have three unique regions of methylation — chemical modifications that affect gene expression. The results were reported 3 September in Molecular Psychiatry.
Researchers have modified optogenetics — a technique that activates neurons in mouse brains with beams of light — to toggle a gene on or off. They reported the advance 22 August in Nature.
Researchers have uncovered the mechanism by which a candidate drug for Angelman syndrome activates UBE3A, the gene that is silenced in the syndrome, according to a study published 20 August in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The simplest form of in vitro fertilization does not increase the risk for autism or intellectual disability, but the effect of other fertility treatments is still unclear, according to two large Scandinavian studies published in July.
A new database pools health registry data from seven countries, dramatically boosting sample sizes for epidemiological studies of autism.
Researchers have debuted the most comprehensive map to date showing how the suite of methyl tags on the DNA of brain cells changes across the genome over a lifetime. The map, published 4 July in Science, suggests that shifting patterns of methylation may guide key periods of brain development.
RORA, an autism candidate gene, encodes a protein that binds more than 2,500 other genes and alters the expression of some of those genes, according to a study published 22 May in Molecular Autism.
Epigenetics, or the chemical markings on DNA that affect gene expression, plays a role in some cases of autism, according to a study of 50 identical twins published 23 April in Molecular Psychiatry.
Infection during pregnancy may alter the chemical tags that are added to histones, proteins that form a spool for DNA, according to a study published 9 February in Brain, Behavior and Immunity. Drugs that target these tags may treat neuropsychiatric disorders, the researchers say.
Women who report being abused as children are more likely to have a child with autism, according to a new report from the Nurses’ Health Study, published 20 March in the Journal of the American Medical Association.