Scientists Link Gene Abnormality to Autism
Researchers hope the finding will one day lead to new screening methods.
Jan. 9, 2008— -- A rare chromosome abnormality increases the risk of developing autism by about 100 times, a new study finds.
Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston found that a tiny segment of chromosome 16 is missing or duplicated in about 1 percent of children with autism. Autism experts hope the finding could someday lead to the development of a genetic test that will help parents determine their risk of having a child with autism.
"By identifying more of these underlying causes of the disorder, eventually what will happen is a biotech company or academic researcher will be able to put a lot of these genes on micro array chips -- a mechanism by which you can simultaneously look at many different genes -- so we can screen for the risk of having an autistic child," said Dr. Peter Hotez, professor and chairman of the department of microbiology, immunology and tropical medicine at George Washington University.
Using data collected from the Autism Genetic Resource Exchange, researchers analyzed the genetic tests of 751 families with one or more autistic children. They found that five of the people with autism had an area on chromosome 16 that was missing genetic information -- a phenomenon known as a deletion.
In all five of these cases, the parents of the child with autism did not have the deletion, suggesting that the abnormality was not inherited but rather occurred spontaneously.
To confirm this finding, researchers examined nearly 1,000 patients at Children's Hospital Boston, about half of whom had been diagnosed with autism or a similar developmental delay disorder. Among those who were diagnosed with such a disorder, five had the same deletion. Moreover, four children were found to have a separate abnormality at the same region of the chromosome -- specifically, a duplication of these genes.
Researchers did not find these abnormalities in any of the patients they studied who did not have autism or a similar disorder, further reinforcing the idea that these genetic abnormalities were specific to those with such disorders.
