Researchers have mapped interactions between hundreds of variants of proteins made from known autism risk genes, they reported 11 April in Nature Communications. The highly connected network reveals that autism genes tend to interact with each other and with many more partners than suspected.
Two autism-related disorders share disruptions in immune pathways despite major differences in the individual genes affected, according to a study published 24 February in Molecular Autism.
Disorganized patches found in the brains of children with autism prompt debate about their significance for the disorder. Three experts give their perspectives.
To understand the role of FOXP2, a gene that links autism and language, researchers should look at its partner genes and at language models such as songbirds, say Genevieve Konopka and Todd Roberts.
Two new maps of the brain — an atlas of fetal development and a wiring diagram in the mouse — debuted 2 April in Nature. The maps may open new avenues of investigation into the genetic and neurological basis of autism.
In the brains of people with autism, certain genes are suppressed by a chemical tag that increases binding to MeCP2, the protein implicated in Rett syndrome. The findings were published 21 January in Translational Psychiatry.
Researchers should investigate a broad spectrum of human- and animal-derived tissues to fully capture the complexity of autism, say Michael Talkowski and James Gusella.
The brains of children with autism contain discrete patches of what look like immature neurons, according to a small study of postmortem brains published 27 March in the New England Journal of Medicine.
A small fragment of RNA may regulate the expression of RORA, a gene implicated in many autism-related pathways, according to a study published 6 February in Scientific Reports.
Sequencing studies over the past few years have made a dramatic and unexpected discovery: Many of the mutations in individuals with autism are in genes that regulate chromatin, which helps package DNA in the cell nucleus, say Gerald Crabtree and Aryaman Shalizi.