People with autism are twice as likely to carry alterations in genes that regulate the circadian clock, or the body’s sleep-wake cycle as those without the disorder. The findings may help explain why most children with autism have trouble with sleep.
A new resource reveals that gene expression varies more across tissues in one person than it does in the same tissue type among individuals. The findings, described 8 May in Science, indicate that the brain’s gene expression signature is unique.
A new method simultaneously reveals a single cell’s DNA sequence and which of its genes are turned on.
A new method for labeling cell lines and checking their quality could improve the validity of study results.
A panel of genes expressed in blood may identify toddlers who will later be diagnosed with autism.
The genetic makeup of an individual plays much a bigger role than environmental factors in whether he or she develops autism, according to one of the largest twin studies to date.
Less than one-third of sibling pairs with autism who carry rare mutations in autism-linked genes share those mutations, according to the largest study yet to sequence whole genomes of people with the disorder. The study questions the assumption that autism’s risk factors run in families, but some experts are skeptical.
A new tool helps predict whether large DNA duplications and deletions, common among people with autism, are harmful or benign.
A set of small molecules in the blood can distinguish people with autism from controls with 81 percent accuracy, claims a biotech firm, but the test faces a long and difficult road to clinical use.
Combining analysis of large deletions or duplications in the genome with sequences from protein-coding regions can identify new syndromes, as well as the mutations that cause those disorders, according to a report published 14 September in Nature Genetics.