SP1, a protein that regulates the expression of several autism candidate genes, could increase risk of the disorder by simultaneously altering the expression of a number of the genes, according to a study published 24 October in Biological Psychiatry.
The molecular soldiers of the immune system may contribute to many cases of autism, according to a diverse array of studies published in the past few months.
Paul Patterson talks to SFARI.org about the key molecular players involved in immune reactions during pregnancy.
In families that have more than one child with autism, the middle children, particularly those born second, have a higher risk of developing autism than other children in the family, according to a study published 19 October in PLoS One. In families that have only one child with autism, however, risk of the disorder rises with each additional birth, the study found.
Probiotic bacteria alleviate stress in healthy mice and modify the expression of receptors for a chemical messenger that inhibits signaling in the brain.
BTBR mice, which are less social than the typical B6 mice, have an elevated immune response in their brains and blood compared with those mice, according to a study published 20 July in PLoS ONE. Hybrids of BTBR and B6 mice have intermediate levels of immune molecules.
Including more females in autism research studies will aid the search for genetic and environmental susceptibility factors for the disorder, says genetic psychiatrist Lauren Weiss.
A complicated interplay between a certain genetic variant and autism, schizophrenia and rheumatoid arthritis adds one more intriguing correlation to the growing list of autism risk factors.
Researchers have upended a central tenet of biology by showing that there are more than 10,000 sites in the human genome where RNA sequences do not match the DNA sequences from which they are transcribed. The findings were published 19 May in Science.
Two networks of genes are abnormally expressed in the brains of people with autism, according to a study published today in Nature.