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Chair SY, Chow KM, Chan CWL, Chan JYW, Law BMH, Waye MMY. Structural Variations Identified in Patients with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in the Chinese Population: A Systematic Review of Case-Control Studies. Genes (Basel) 2024; 15:1082. [PMID: 39202440 PMCID: PMC11353326 DOI: 10.3390/genes15081082] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/15/2024] [Revised: 08/08/2024] [Accepted: 08/12/2024] [Indexed: 09/03/2024] Open
Abstract
Autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disability characterised by the impairment of social interaction and communication ability. The alarming increase in its prevalence in children urged researchers to obtain a better understanding of the causes of this disease. Genetic factors are considered to be crucial, as ASD has a tendency to run in families. In recent years, with technological advances, the importance of structural variations (SVs) in ASD began to emerge. Most of these studies, however, focus on the Caucasian population. As a populated ethnicity, ASD shall be a significant health issue in China. This systematic review aims to summarise current case-control studies of SVs associated with ASD in the Chinese population. A list of genes identified in the nine included studies is provided. It also reveals that similar research focusing on other genetic backgrounds is demanded to manifest the disease etiology in different ethnic groups, and assist the development of accurate ethnic-oriented genetic diagnosis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sek-Ying Chair
- The Nethersole School of Nursing, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China; (K.-M.C.); (C.W.-L.C.); (J.Y.-W.C.); (B.M.-H.L.); (M.M.-Y.W.)
- Asia-Pacific Genomic and Genetic Nursing Centre, The Nethersole School of Nursing, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
- The Croucher Laboratory for Human Genomics, The Nethersole School of Nursing, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Ka-Ming Chow
- The Nethersole School of Nursing, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China; (K.-M.C.); (C.W.-L.C.); (J.Y.-W.C.); (B.M.-H.L.); (M.M.-Y.W.)
- Asia-Pacific Genomic and Genetic Nursing Centre, The Nethersole School of Nursing, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
- The Croucher Laboratory for Human Genomics, The Nethersole School of Nursing, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Cecilia Wai-Ling Chan
- The Nethersole School of Nursing, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China; (K.-M.C.); (C.W.-L.C.); (J.Y.-W.C.); (B.M.-H.L.); (M.M.-Y.W.)
| | - Judy Yuet-Wa Chan
- The Nethersole School of Nursing, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China; (K.-M.C.); (C.W.-L.C.); (J.Y.-W.C.); (B.M.-H.L.); (M.M.-Y.W.)
| | - Bernard Man-Hin Law
- The Nethersole School of Nursing, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China; (K.-M.C.); (C.W.-L.C.); (J.Y.-W.C.); (B.M.-H.L.); (M.M.-Y.W.)
| | - Mary Miu-Yee Waye
- The Nethersole School of Nursing, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China; (K.-M.C.); (C.W.-L.C.); (J.Y.-W.C.); (B.M.-H.L.); (M.M.-Y.W.)
- Asia-Pacific Genomic and Genetic Nursing Centre, The Nethersole School of Nursing, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
- The Croucher Laboratory for Human Genomics, The Nethersole School of Nursing, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
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Yang Y, Wang Q, Wang C, Buxbaum J, Ionita-Laza I. KnockoffHybrid: A knockoff framework for hybrid analysis of trio and population designs in genome-wide association studies. Am J Hum Genet 2024; 111:1448-1461. [PMID: 38821058 PMCID: PMC11267528 DOI: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2024.05.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/10/2023] [Revised: 05/02/2024] [Accepted: 05/06/2024] [Indexed: 06/02/2024] Open
Abstract
Both trio and population designs are popular study designs for identifying risk genetic variants in genome-wide association studies (GWASs). The trio design, as a family-based design, is robust to confounding due to population structure, whereas the population design is often more powerful due to larger sample sizes. Here, we propose KnockoffHybrid, a knockoff-based statistical method for hybrid analysis of both the trio and population designs. KnockoffHybrid provides a unified framework that brings together the advantages of both designs and produces powerful hybrid analysis while controlling the false discovery rate (FDR) in the presence of linkage disequilibrium and population structure. Furthermore, KnockoffHybrid has the flexibility to leverage different types of summary statistics for hybrid analyses, including expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) and GWAS summary statistics. We demonstrate in simulations that KnockoffHybrid offers power gains over non-hybrid methods for the trio and population designs with the same number of cases while controlling the FDR with complex correlation among variants and population structure among subjects. In hybrid analyses of three trio cohorts for autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) from the Autism Speaks MSSNG, Autism Sequencing Consortium, and Autism Genome Project with GWAS summary statistics from the iPSYCH project and eQTL summary statistics from the MetaBrain project, KnockoffHybrid outperforms conventional methods by replicating several known risk genes for ASDs and identifying additional associations with variants in other genes, including the PRAME family genes involved in axon guidance and which may act as common targets for human speech/language evolution and related disorders.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yi Yang
- Department of Biostatistics, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China; School of Data Science, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
| | - Qi Wang
- School of Data Science, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Chen Wang
- Department of Biostatistics, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA
| | - Joseph Buxbaum
- Departments of Psychiatry, Neuroscience, and Genetics and Genomic Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA
| | - Iuliana Ionita-Laza
- Department of Biostatistics, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA; Department of Statistics, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
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Leow KQ, Tonta MA, Lu J, Coleman HA, Parkington HC. Towards understanding sex differences in autism spectrum disorders. Brain Res 2024; 1833:148877. [PMID: 38513995 DOI: 10.1016/j.brainres.2024.148877] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/05/2024] [Revised: 03/17/2024] [Accepted: 03/18/2024] [Indexed: 03/23/2024]
Abstract
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by social deficits, repetitive behaviours and lack of empathy. Its significant genetic heritability and potential comorbidities often lead to diagnostic and therapeutic challenges. This review addresses the biological basis of ASD, focusing on the sex differences in gene expression and hormonal influences. ASD is more commonly diagnosed in males at a ratio of 4:1, indicating a potential oversight in female-specific ASD research and a risk of underdiagnosis in females. We consider how ASD manifests differently across sexes by exploring differential gene expression in female and male brains and consider how variations in steroid hormones influence ASD characteristics. Synaptic function, including excitation/inhibition ratio imbalance, is influenced by gene mutations and this is explored as a key factor in the cognitive and behavioural manifestations of ASD. We also discuss the role of micro RNAs (miRNAs) and highlight a novel mutation in miRNA-873, which affects a suite of key synaptic genes, neurexin, neuroligin, SHANK and post-synaptic density proteins, implicated in the pathology of ASD. Our review suggests that genetic predisposition, sex differences in brain gene expression, and hormonal factors significantly contribute to the presentation, identification and severity of ASD, necessitating sex-specific considerations in diagnosis and treatments. These findings advocate for personalized interventions to improve the outcomes for individuals with ASD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Karen Q Leow
- Department of Physiology, Biomedical Discovery Institute, Monash University, Victoria, Australia
| | - Mary A Tonta
- Department of Physiology, Biomedical Discovery Institute, Monash University, Victoria, Australia
| | - Jing Lu
- Tianjin Institute of Infectious Disease, Second Hospital of Tianjin Medical University, China
| | - Harold A Coleman
- Department of Physiology, Biomedical Discovery Institute, Monash University, Victoria, Australia
| | - Helena C Parkington
- Department of Physiology, Biomedical Discovery Institute, Monash University, Victoria, Australia.
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Nautiyal H, Jaiswar A, Jha PK, Dwivedi S. Exploring key genes and pathways associated with sex differences in autism spectrum disorder: integrated bioinformatic analysis. Mamm Genome 2024; 35:280-295. [PMID: 38594551 DOI: 10.1007/s00335-024-10036-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/06/2023] [Accepted: 02/20/2024] [Indexed: 04/11/2024]
Abstract
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a heterogenous neurodevelopmental disorder marked by functional abnormalities in brain that causes social and linguistic difficulties. The incidence of ASD is more prevalent in males compared to females, but the underlying mechanism, as well as molecular indications for identifying sex-specific differences in ASD symptoms remain unknown. Thus, impacting the development of personalized strategy towards pharmacotherapy of ASD. The current study employs an integrated bioinformatic approach to investigate the genes and pathways uniquely associated with sex specific differences in autistic individuals. Based on microarray dataset (GSE6575) extracted from the gene expression omnibus, the dysregulated genes between the autistic and the neurotypical individuals for both sexes were identified. Gene set enrichment analysis was performed to ascertain biological activities linked to the dysregulated genes. Protein-protein interaction network analysis was carried out to identify hub genes. The identified hub genes were examined to determine their functions and involvement in the associated pathways using Enrichr. Additionally, hub genes were validated from autism-associated databases and the potential small molecules targeting the hub genes were identified. The present study utilized whole blood transcriptomic gene expression analysis data and identified 2211 and 958 differentially expressed unique genes in males and females respectively. The functional enrichment analysis revealed that male hub genes were functionally associated with RNA polymerase II mediated transcriptional regulation whereas female hub genes were involved in intracellular signal transduction and cell migration. The top male hub genes exhibited functional enrichment in tyrosine kinase signalling pathway. The pathway enrichment analysis of male hub genes indicates the enrichment of papillomavirus infection. Female hub genes were enriched in androgen receptor signalling pathway and functionally enriched in focal adhesion specific excision repair. Identified drug like candidates targeting these genes may serve as a potential sex specific therapeutics. Wortmannin for males, 5-Fluorouracil for females had the highest scores. Targeted and sex-specific pharmacotherapies may be created for the management of ASD. The current investigation identifies sex-specific molecular signatures derived from whole blood which may serve as a potential peripheral sex-specific biomarkers for ASD. The study also uncovers the possible pharmacological interventions against the selected genes/pathway, providing support in development of therapeutic strategies to mitigate ASD. However, experimental proofs on biological systems are warranted.
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Affiliation(s)
- Himani Nautiyal
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Health Sciences and Technology, UPES, Dehradun, 248001, India
| | - Akanksha Jaiswar
- Laboratory of Human Disease Multiomics, Mossakowski Medical Research Institute Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
| | - Prabhash Kumar Jha
- Center for Excellence in Vascular Biology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Shubham Dwivedi
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Health Sciences and Technology, UPES, Dehradun, 248001, India.
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Yuan X, Chen L, Saffen D. Allele-Specific Regulation of the Candidate Autism Liability Gene RAI1 by the Enhancer Variant rs4925102 ( C/G). Genes (Basel) 2024; 15:460. [PMID: 38674394 PMCID: PMC11049881 DOI: 10.3390/genes15040460] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/15/2024] [Revised: 03/29/2024] [Accepted: 03/30/2024] [Indexed: 04/28/2024] Open
Abstract
Retinoic acid-induced 1 (RAI1) is a dosage-sensitive gene that causes autistic phenotypes when deleted or duplicated. Observations from clinical cases and animal models also suggest that changes of RAI1 expression levels contribute to autism. Previously, we used a bioinformatic approach to identify several single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) located within the 5'-region of RAI1 that correlate with RAI1 mRNA expression in the human brain. In particular, the SNP rs4925102 was identified as a candidate cis-acting regulatory variant, the genotype of which may affect the binding of transcription factors that influence RAI1 mRNA expression. In this study, we provide experimental evidence based on reporter gene, chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP), and chromatin conformation capture (3C) assays that rs4925102 regulates RAI1 mRNA expression in an allele-specific manner in human cell lines, including the neuroblastoma-derived cell line SH-SY5Y. We also describe a statistically significant association between rs4925102 genotype and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis in a case-control study and near-statistically significant association in an Autism Genome Project (AGP) transmission disequilibrium (TDT) study using Caucasian subjects.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xi Yuan
- Institutes of Brain Science, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China;
| | - Li Chen
- Department of Cellular and Genetic Medicine, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China
| | - David Saffen
- Institutes of Brain Science, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China;
- Department of Cellular and Genetic Medicine, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China
- State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China
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Mohrmann L, Seebach J, Missler M, Rohlmann A. Distinct Alterations in Dendritic Spine Morphology in the Absence of β-Neurexins. Int J Mol Sci 2024; 25:1285. [PMID: 38279285 PMCID: PMC10817056 DOI: 10.3390/ijms25021285] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/21/2023] [Revised: 01/12/2024] [Accepted: 01/18/2024] [Indexed: 01/28/2024] Open
Abstract
Dendritic spines are essential for synaptic function because they constitute the postsynaptic compartment of the neurons that receives the most excitatory input. The extracellularly shorter variant of the presynaptic cell adhesion molecules neurexins, β-neurexin, has been implicated in various aspects of synaptic function, including neurotransmitter release. However, its role in developing or stabilizing dendritic spines as fundamental computational units of excitatory synapses has remained unclear. Here, we show through morphological analysis that the deletion of β-neurexins in hippocampal neurons in vitro and in hippocampal tissue in vivo affects presynaptic dense-core vesicles, as hypothesized earlier, and, unexpectedly, alters the postsynaptic spine structure. Specifically, we observed that the absence of β-neurexins led to an increase in filopodial-like protrusions in vitro and more mature mushroom-type spines in the CA1 region of adult knockout mice. In addition, the deletion of β-neurexins caused alterations in the spine head dimension and an increase in spines with perforations of their postsynaptic density but no changes in the overall number of spines or synapses. Our results indicate that presynaptic β-neurexins play a role across the synaptic cleft, possibly by aligning with postsynaptic binding partners and glutamate receptors via transsynaptic columns.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Markus Missler
- Institute of Anatomy and Molecular Neurobiology, University Münster, 48149 Münster, Germany; (L.M.); (J.S.)
| | - Astrid Rohlmann
- Institute of Anatomy and Molecular Neurobiology, University Münster, 48149 Münster, Germany; (L.M.); (J.S.)
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Bustos FJ, Pandian S, Haensgen H, Zhao JP, Strouf H, Heidenreich M, Swiech L, Deverman BE, Gradinaru V, Zhang F, Constantine-Paton M. Removal of a partial genomic duplication restores synaptic transmission and behavior in the MyosinVA mutant mouse Flailer. BMC Biol 2023; 21:232. [PMID: 37957716 PMCID: PMC10644554 DOI: 10.1186/s12915-023-01714-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/20/2023] [Accepted: 09/26/2023] [Indexed: 11/15/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Copy number variations, and particularly duplications of genomic regions, have been strongly associated with various neurodegenerative conditions including autism spectrum disorder (ASD). These genetic variations have been found to have a significant impact on brain development and function, which can lead to the emergence of neurological and behavioral symptoms. Developing strategies to target these genomic duplications has been challenging, as the presence of endogenous copies of the duplicate genes often complicates the editing strategies. RESULTS Using the ASD and anxiety mouse model Flailer, which contains a partial genomic duplication working as a dominant negative for MyoVa, we demonstrate the use of DN-CRISPRs to remove a 700 bp genomic region in vitro and in vivo. Importantly, DN-CRISPRs have not been used to remove genomic regions using sgRNA with an offset greater than 300 bp. We found that editing the flailer gene in primary cortical neurons reverts synaptic transport and transmission defects. Moreover, long-term depression (LTD), disrupted in Flailer animals, is recovered after gene editing. Delivery of DN-CRISPRs in vivo shows that local delivery to the ventral hippocampus can rescue some of the mutant behaviors, while intracerebroventricular delivery, completely recovers the Flailer animal phenotype associated to anxiety and ASD. CONCLUSIONS Our results demonstrate the potential of DN-CRISPR to efficiently remove larger genomic duplications, working as a new gene therapy approach for treating neurodegenerative diseases.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fernando J Bustos
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
- Instituto de Ciencias Biomedicas, Facultad de Medicina y Facultad de Ciencias de La Vida, Universidad Andres Bello, Santiago, Chile.
| | - Swarna Pandian
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Henny Haensgen
- Instituto de Ciencias Biomedicas, Facultad de Medicina y Facultad de Ciencias de La Vida, Universidad Andres Bello, Santiago, Chile
| | - Jian-Ping Zhao
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Haley Strouf
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | | | - Lukasz Swiech
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Benjamin E Deverman
- Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, 02142, USA
| | - Viviana Gradinaru
- Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
| | - Feng Zhang
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Department of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Martha Constantine-Paton
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
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Vilela J, Martiniano H, Marques AR, Santos JX, Asif M, Rasga C, Oliveira G, Vicente AM. Identification of Neurotransmission and Synaptic Biological Processes Disrupted in Autism Spectrum Disorder Using Interaction Networks and Community Detection Analysis. Biomedicines 2023; 11:2971. [PMID: 38001974 PMCID: PMC10668950 DOI: 10.3390/biomedicines11112971] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/03/2023] [Revised: 10/26/2023] [Accepted: 11/01/2023] [Indexed: 11/26/2023] Open
Abstract
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by communication deficits and repetitive behavioral patterns. Hundreds of candidate genes have been implicated in ASD, including neurotransmission and synaptic (NS) genes; however, the genetic architecture of this disease is far from clear. In this study, we seek to clarify the biological processes affected by NS gene variants identified in individuals with ASD and the global networks that link those processes together. For a curated list of 1216 NS candidate genes, identified in multiple databases and the literature, we searched for ultra-rare (UR) loss-of-function (LoF) variants in the whole-exome sequencing dataset from the Autism Sequencing Consortium (N = 3938 cases). Filtering for population frequency was carried out using gnomAD (N = 60,146 controls). NS genes with UR LoF variants were used to construct a network of protein-protein interactions, and the network's biological communities were identified by applying the Leiden algorithm. We further explored the expression enrichment of network genes in specific brain regions. We identified 356 variants in 208 genes, with a preponderance of UR LoF variants in the PDE11A and SYTL3 genes. Expression enrichment analysis highlighted several subcortical structures, particularly the basal ganglia. The interaction network defined seven network communities, clustering synaptic and neurotransmitter pathways with several ubiquitous processes that occur in multiple organs and systems. This approach also uncovered biological pathways that are not usually associated with ASD, such as brain cytochromes P450 and brain mitochondrial metabolism. Overall, the community analysis suggests that ASD involves the disruption of synaptic and neurotransmitter pathways but also ubiquitous, but less frequently implicated, biological processes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joana Vilela
- Departamento de Promoção da Saúde e Doenças Não Transmissíveis, Instituto Nacional de Saúde Doutor Ricardo Jorge, Avenida Padre Cruz, 1649-016 Lisboa, Portugal; (J.V.); (H.M.); (A.R.M.); (J.X.S.); (M.A.); (C.R.)
- BioISI-Biosystems & Integrative Sciences Institute, Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisboa, Campo Grande, C8, 1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal
| | - Hugo Martiniano
- Departamento de Promoção da Saúde e Doenças Não Transmissíveis, Instituto Nacional de Saúde Doutor Ricardo Jorge, Avenida Padre Cruz, 1649-016 Lisboa, Portugal; (J.V.); (H.M.); (A.R.M.); (J.X.S.); (M.A.); (C.R.)
- BioISI-Biosystems & Integrative Sciences Institute, Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisboa, Campo Grande, C8, 1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal
| | - Ana Rita Marques
- Departamento de Promoção da Saúde e Doenças Não Transmissíveis, Instituto Nacional de Saúde Doutor Ricardo Jorge, Avenida Padre Cruz, 1649-016 Lisboa, Portugal; (J.V.); (H.M.); (A.R.M.); (J.X.S.); (M.A.); (C.R.)
- BioISI-Biosystems & Integrative Sciences Institute, Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisboa, Campo Grande, C8, 1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal
| | - João Xavier Santos
- Departamento de Promoção da Saúde e Doenças Não Transmissíveis, Instituto Nacional de Saúde Doutor Ricardo Jorge, Avenida Padre Cruz, 1649-016 Lisboa, Portugal; (J.V.); (H.M.); (A.R.M.); (J.X.S.); (M.A.); (C.R.)
- BioISI-Biosystems & Integrative Sciences Institute, Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisboa, Campo Grande, C8, 1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal
| | - Muhammad Asif
- Departamento de Promoção da Saúde e Doenças Não Transmissíveis, Instituto Nacional de Saúde Doutor Ricardo Jorge, Avenida Padre Cruz, 1649-016 Lisboa, Portugal; (J.V.); (H.M.); (A.R.M.); (J.X.S.); (M.A.); (C.R.)
- BioISI-Biosystems & Integrative Sciences Institute, Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisboa, Campo Grande, C8, 1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal
- Department of Bioinformatics and Biotechnology, Government College University Faisalabad, Faisalabad 38000, Pakistan
| | - Célia Rasga
- Departamento de Promoção da Saúde e Doenças Não Transmissíveis, Instituto Nacional de Saúde Doutor Ricardo Jorge, Avenida Padre Cruz, 1649-016 Lisboa, Portugal; (J.V.); (H.M.); (A.R.M.); (J.X.S.); (M.A.); (C.R.)
- BioISI-Biosystems & Integrative Sciences Institute, Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisboa, Campo Grande, C8, 1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal
| | - Guiomar Oliveira
- Unidade de Neurodesenvolvimento e Autismo, Serviço do Centro de Desenvolvimento da Criança, Centro de Investigação e Formação Clínica, Hospital Pediátrico, Centro Hospitalar e Universitário de Coimbra (CHUC), 3000-602 Coimbra, Portugal;
- Coimbra Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Translational Research, University Clinic of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Coimbra, 3000-602 Coimbra, Portugal
| | - Astrid Moura Vicente
- Departamento de Promoção da Saúde e Doenças Não Transmissíveis, Instituto Nacional de Saúde Doutor Ricardo Jorge, Avenida Padre Cruz, 1649-016 Lisboa, Portugal; (J.V.); (H.M.); (A.R.M.); (J.X.S.); (M.A.); (C.R.)
- BioISI-Biosystems & Integrative Sciences Institute, Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisboa, Campo Grande, C8, 1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal
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Frare C, Pitt SK, Hewett SJ. Sex- and age-dependent contribution of System x c- to cognitive, sensory, and social behaviors revealed by comprehensive behavioral analyses of System x c- null mice. Front Behav Neurosci 2023; 17:1238349. [PMID: 37649973 PMCID: PMC10462982 DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2023.1238349] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/11/2023] [Accepted: 07/31/2023] [Indexed: 09/01/2023] Open
Abstract
Background System xc- (Sxc-) is an important heteromeric amino acid cystine/glutamate exchanger that plays a pivotal role in the CNS by importing cystine into cells while exporting glutamate. Although certain behaviors have been identified as altered in Sxc- null mutant mice, our understanding of the comprehensive impact of Sxc- on behavior remains incomplete. Methods To address this gap, we compared motor, sensory and social behaviors of male and female mice in mice null for Sxc- (SLC7A11sut/sut) with wildtype littermates (SLC7A11+/+) in a comprehensive and systematic manner to determine effects of genotype, sex, age, and their potential interactions. Results Motor performance was not affected by loss of Sxc- in both males and females, although it was impacted negatively by age. Motor learning was specifically disrupted in female mice lacking Sxc- at both 2 and 6 months of age. Further, female SLC7A11sut/sut mice at both ages exhibited impaired sociability, but normal spatial and recognition memory, as well as sensorimotor gating. Finally, pronounced open-space anxiety was displayed by female SLC7A11sut/sut when they were young. In contrast, young SLC7A11sut/sut male mice demonstrated normal sociability, delayed spatial learning, increased open-space anxiety and heightened sensitivity to noise. As they aged, anxiety and noise sensitivity abated but hyperactivity emerged. Discussion We find that the behavioral phenotypes of female SLC7A11sut/sut are similar to those observed in mouse models of autism spectrum disorder, while behaviors of male SLC7A11sut/sut resemble those seen in mouse models of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. These results underscore the need for further investigation of SLC7A11 in neurodevelopment. By expanding our understanding of the potential involvement of Sxc-, we may gain additional insights into the mechanisms underlying complex neurodevelopmental conditions.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Sandra J. Hewett
- Department of Biology, Program in Neuroscience, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, United States
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Cucinotta F, Lintas C, Tomaiuolo P, Baccarin M, Picinelli C, Castronovo P, Sacco R, Piras IS, Turriziani L, Ricciardello A, Scattoni ML, Persico AM. Diagnostic yield and clinical impact of chromosomal microarray analysis in autism spectrum disorder. Mol Genet Genomic Med 2023; 11:e2182. [PMID: 37186221 PMCID: PMC10422062 DOI: 10.1002/mgg3.2182] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/10/2022] [Revised: 03/21/2023] [Accepted: 03/24/2023] [Indexed: 05/17/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by high heritability estimates and recurrence rates; its genetic underpinnings are very heterogeneous and include variable combinations of common and rare variants. Array-comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH) offers significant sensitivity for the identification of copy number variants (CNVs), which can act as susceptibility or causal factors for ASD. METHODS The aim of this study was to evaluate both diagnostic yield and clinical impact of aCGH in 329 ASD patients of Italian descent. RESULTS Pathogenic/likely pathogenic CNVs were identified in 50/329 (15.2%) patients, whereas 89/329 (27.1%) carry variants of uncertain significance. The 10 most enriched gene sets identified by Gene Ontology Enrichment Analysis are primarily involved in neuronal function and synaptic connectivity. In 13/50 (26.0%) patients with pathogenic/likely pathogenic CNVs, the outcome of array-CGH led to the request of 25 additional medical exams which would not have otherwise been prescribed, mainly including brain MRI, EEG, EKG, and/or cardiac ultrasound. A positive outcome was obtained in 12/25 (48.0%) of these additional tests. CONCLUSIONS This study confirms the satisfactory diagnostic yield of aCGH, underscoring its potential for better, more in-depth care of children with autism when genetic results are analyzed also with a focus on patient management.
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Affiliation(s)
- Francesca Cucinotta
- Interdepartmental Program "Autism 0‐90", "G. Martino" University Hospital of MessinaMessinaItaly
- IRCCS Centro Neurolesi “Bonino Pulejo”MessinaItaly
| | - Carla Lintas
- Service for Neurodevelopmental Disorders & Laboratory of Molecular Psychiatry and NeurogeneticsUniversity “Campus Bio‐Medico”RomeItaly
| | - Pasquale Tomaiuolo
- Interdepartmental Program "Autism 0‐90", "G. Martino" University Hospital of MessinaMessinaItaly
| | - Marco Baccarin
- Mafalda Luce Center for Pervasive Developmental DisordersMilanItaly
- Synlab GeneticsBioggioSwitzerland
| | - Chiara Picinelli
- Mafalda Luce Center for Pervasive Developmental DisordersMilanItaly
| | - Paola Castronovo
- Mafalda Luce Center for Pervasive Developmental DisordersMilanItaly
| | - Roberto Sacco
- Service for Neurodevelopmental Disorders & Laboratory of Molecular Psychiatry and NeurogeneticsUniversity “Campus Bio‐Medico”RomeItaly
| | - Ignazio Stefano Piras
- Service for Neurodevelopmental Disorders & Laboratory of Molecular Psychiatry and NeurogeneticsUniversity “Campus Bio‐Medico”RomeItaly
- Neurogenomics DivisionThe Translational Genomics Research InstitutePhoenixArizonaUSA
| | - Laura Turriziani
- Interdepartmental Program "Autism 0‐90", "G. Martino" University Hospital of MessinaMessinaItaly
| | - Arianna Ricciardello
- Interdepartmental Program "Autism 0‐90", "G. Martino" University Hospital of MessinaMessinaItaly
| | | | - Antonio M. Persico
- Child and Adolescent Neuropsychiatry Program, Modena University Hospital & Department of Biomedical, Metabolic and Neural SciencesUniversity of Modena and Reggio EmiliaModenaItaly
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11
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Zarrei M, Burton CL, Engchuan W, Higginbotham EJ, Wei J, Shaikh S, Roslin NM, MacDonald JR, Pellecchia G, Nalpathamkalam T, Lamoureux S, Manshaei R, Howe J, Trost B, Thiruvahindrapuram B, Marshall CR, Yuen RKC, Wintle RF, Strug LJ, Stavropoulos DJ, Vorstman JAS, Arnold P, Merico D, Woodbury-Smith M, Crosbie J, Schachar RJ, Scherer SW. Gene copy number variation and pediatric mental health/neurodevelopment in a general population. Hum Mol Genet 2023; 32:2411-2421. [PMID: 37154571 PMCID: PMC10360394 DOI: 10.1093/hmg/ddad074] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/09/2023] [Revised: 04/27/2023] [Accepted: 05/02/2023] [Indexed: 05/10/2023] Open
Abstract
We assessed the relationship of gene copy number variation (CNV) in mental health/neurodevelopmental traits and diagnoses, physical health and cognition in a community sample of 7100 unrelated children and youth of European or East Asian ancestry (Spit for Science). Clinically significant or susceptibility CNVs were present in 3.9% of participants and were associated with elevated scores on a continuous measure of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) traits (P = 5.0 × 10-3), longer response inhibition (a cognitive deficit found in several mental health and neurodevelopmental disorders; P = 1.0 × 10-2) and increased prevalence of mental health diagnoses (P = 1.9 × 10-6, odds ratio: 3.09), specifically ADHD, autism spectrum disorder anxiety and learning problems/learning disorder (P's < 0.01). There was an increased burden of rare deletions in gene-sets related to brain function or expression in brain associated with more ADHD traits. With the current mental health crisis, our data established a baseline for delineating genetic contributors in pediatric-onset conditions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mehdi Zarrei
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
- Program in Genetics and Genome Biology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Christie L Burton
- Neurosciences and Mental Health Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Worrawat Engchuan
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
- Program in Genetics and Genome Biology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Edward J Higginbotham
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
- Program in Genetics and Genome Biology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - John Wei
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Sabah Shaikh
- Neurosciences and Mental Health Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Nicole M Roslin
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
- Program in Genetics and Genome Biology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, M5G 0A4, Canada
- Neurosciences and Mental Health Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Jeffrey R MacDonald
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Giovanna Pellecchia
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Thomas Nalpathamkalam
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Sylvia Lamoureux
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Roozbeh Manshaei
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
- Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research, Cardiac Genome Clinic, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Jennifer Howe
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Brett Trost
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
- Program in Genetics and Genome Biology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, M5G 0A4, Canada
| | | | - Christian R Marshall
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
- Genome Diagnostics, Department of Paediatric Laboratory Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
- Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 1A8, Canada
| | - Ryan K C Yuen
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
- Program in Genetics and Genome Biology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Richard F Wintle
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Lisa J Strug
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
- Program in Genetics and Genome Biology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, M5G 0A4, Canada
- Departments of Statistical Sciences, Computer Science and Biostatistics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5G 1Z5, Canada
| | - Dimitri J Stavropoulos
- Genome Diagnostics, Department of Paediatric Laboratory Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Jacob A S Vorstman
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
- Program in Genetics and Genome Biology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, M5G 0A4, Canada
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5T 1R8, Canada
- Autism Research Unit, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Paul Arnold
- Program in Genetics and Genome Biology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, M5G 0A4, Canada
- Mathison Centre for Mental Health Research and Education, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada
- Departments of Psychiatry & Medical Genetics, Hotchkiss Brain Institute, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada
| | - Daniele Merico
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
- Deep Genomics Inc., Toronto, ON M5G 1M1, Canada
| | - Marc Woodbury-Smith
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
- Institute of Neuroscience, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, UK
| | - Jennifer Crosbie
- Neurosciences and Mental Health Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5T 1R8, Canada
| | - Russell J Schachar
- Neurosciences and Mental Health Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5T 1R8, Canada
- Institute of Medical Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 1A8, Canada
| | - Stephen W Scherer
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
- Program in Genetics and Genome Biology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, M5G 0A4, Canada
- Department of Molecular Genetics, McLaughlin Centre, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 1A8, Canada
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12
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Shiwaku H, Katayama S, Gao M, Kondo K, Nakano Y, Motokawa Y, Toyoda S, Yoshida F, Hori H, Kubota T, Ishikawa K, Kunugi H, Ikegaya Y, Okazawa H, Takahashi H. Analyzing schizophrenia-related phenotypes in mice caused by autoantibodies against NRXN1α in schizophrenia. Brain Behav Immun 2023; 111:32-45. [PMID: 37004758 DOI: 10.1016/j.bbi.2023.03.028] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/05/2022] [Revised: 03/24/2023] [Accepted: 03/28/2023] [Indexed: 04/04/2023] Open
Abstract
The molecular pathological mechanisms underlying schizophrenia remain unclear; however, genomic analysis has identified genes encoding important risk molecules. One such molecule is neurexin 1α (NRXN1α), a presynaptic cell adhesion molecule. In addition, novel autoantibodies that target the nervous system have been found in patients with encephalitis and neurological disorders. Some of these autoantibodies inhibit synaptic antigen molecules. Studies have examined the association between schizophrenia and autoimmunity; however, the pathological data remain unclear. Here, we identified a novel autoantibody against NRXN1α in patients with schizophrenia (n = 2.1%) in a Japanese cohort (n = 387). None of the healthy control participants (n = 362) were positive for anti-NRXN1α autoantibodies. Anti-NRXN1α autoantibodies isolated from patients with schizophrenia inhibited the molecular interaction between NRXN1α and Neuroligin 1 (NLGN1) and between NRXN1α and Neuroligin 2 (NLGN2). Additionally, these autoantibodies reduced the frequency of the miniature excitatory postsynaptic current in the frontal cortex of mice. Administration of anti-NRXN1α autoantibodies from patients with schizophrenia into the cerebrospinal fluid of mice reduced the number of spines/synapses in the frontal cortex and induced schizophrenia-related behaviors such as reduced cognition, impaired pre-pulse inhibition, and reduced social novelty preference. These changes were improved through the removal of anti-NRXN1α autoantibodies from the IgG fraction of patients with schizophrenia. These findings demonstrate that anti-NRXN1α autoantibodies transferred from patients with schizophrenia cause schizophrenia-related pathology in mice. Removal of anti-NRXN1α autoantibodies may be a therapeutic target for a subgroup of patients who are positive for these autoantibodies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hiroki Shiwaku
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Tokyo Medical and Dental University Graduate School, Tokyo 113-8510, Japan.
| | - Shingo Katayama
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Tokyo Medical and Dental University Graduate School, Tokyo 113-8510, Japan
| | - Mengxuan Gao
- Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan
| | - Kanoh Kondo
- Department of Neuropathology, Medical Research Institute and Center for Brain Integration Research, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, 1-5-45, Tokyo 113-8510, Japan
| | - Yuri Nakano
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Tokyo Medical and Dental University Graduate School, Tokyo 113-8510, Japan
| | - Yukiko Motokawa
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Tokyo Medical and Dental University Graduate School, Tokyo 113-8510, Japan
| | - Saori Toyoda
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Tokyo Medical and Dental University Graduate School, Tokyo 113-8510, Japan
| | - Fuyuko Yoshida
- Department of Behavioral Medicine, National Institute of Mental Health, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, 4-1-1, Tokyo 187-8553, Japan
| | - Hiroaki Hori
- Department of Behavioral Medicine, National Institute of Mental Health, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, 4-1-1, Tokyo 187-8553, Japan
| | - Tetsuo Kubota
- Department of Medical Technology, Tsukuba International University, Ibaraki 300-0051, Japan
| | - Kinya Ishikawa
- The Center for Personalized Medicine for Healthy Aging, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo 113-8510, Japan
| | - Hiroshi Kunugi
- Department of Psychiatry, Teikyo University School of Medicine, Tokyo 173-8605, Japan
| | - Yuji Ikegaya
- Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan; Institute for AI and Beyond, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan; Center for Information and Neural Networks, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Suita City, Osaka 565-0871, Japan
| | - Hitoshi Okazawa
- Department of Neuropathology, Medical Research Institute and Center for Brain Integration Research, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, 1-5-45, Tokyo 113-8510, Japan
| | - Hidehiko Takahashi
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Tokyo Medical and Dental University Graduate School, Tokyo 113-8510, Japan
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13
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Mpoulimari I, Zintzaras E. Analysis of convergence of linkage and association studies in autism spectrum disorders. Psychiatr Genet 2023; 33:113-124. [PMID: 37212558 DOI: 10.1097/ypg.0000000000000341] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/23/2023]
Abstract
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a clinically and genetically heterogeneous group of pervasive neurodevelopmental disorders with a strong hereditary component. Although genome-wide linkage studies (GWLS) and [genome-wide association studies (GWAS)] have previously identified hundreds of ASD risk gene loci, the results remain inconclusive. In this study, a genomic convergence approach of GWAS and GWLS for ASD was implemented for the first time in order to identify genomic loci supported by both methods. A database with 32 GWLS and five GWAS for ASD was created. Convergence was quantified as the proportion of significant GWAS markers located within linked regions. Convergence was not found to be significantly higher than expected by chance (z-test = 1,177, P = 0,239). Although convergence is supportive of genuine effects, the lack of agreement between GWLS and GWAS is also indicative that these studies are designed to answer different questions and are not equally well suited for deciphering the genetics of complex traits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ioanna Mpoulimari
- Department of Biomathematics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Thessaly, Larissa, Greece
| | - Elias Zintzaras
- Department of Biomathematics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Thessaly, Larissa, Greece
- The Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies, Tufts Medical Center, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
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14
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Gandhi T, Canepa CR, Adeyelu TT, Adeniyi PA, Lee CC. Neuroanatomical Alterations in the CNTNAP2 Mouse Model of Autism Spectrum Disorder. Brain Sci 2023; 13:891. [PMID: 37371370 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci13060891] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/03/2023] [Revised: 05/23/2023] [Accepted: 05/29/2023] [Indexed: 06/29/2023] Open
Abstract
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is associated with neurodevelopmental alterations, including atypical forebrain cellular organization. Mutations in several ASD-related genes often result in cerebral cortical anomalies, such as the abnormal developmental migration of excitatory pyramidal cells and the malformation of inhibitory neuronal circuitry. Notably here, mutations in the CNTNAP2 gene result in ectopic superficial cortical neurons stalled in lower cortical layers and alterations to the balance of cortical excitation and inhibition. However, the broader circuit-level implications of these findings have not been previously investigated. Therefore, we assessed whether ectopic cortical neurons in CNTNAP2 mutant mice form aberrant connections with higher-order thalamic nuclei, potentially accounting for some autistic behaviors, such as repetitive and hyperactive behaviors. Furthermore, we assessed whether the development of parvalbumin-positive (PV) cortical interneurons and their specialized matrix support structures, called perineuronal nets (PNNs), were altered in these mutant mice. We found alterations in both ectopic neuronal connectivity and in the development of PNNs, PV neurons and PNNs enwrapping PV neurons in various sensory cortical regions and at different postnatal ages in the CNTNAP2 mutant mice, which likely lead to some of the cortical excitation/inhibition (E/I) imbalance associated with ASD. These findings suggest neuroanatomical alterations in cortical regions that underlie the emergence of ASD-related behaviors in this mouse model of the disorder.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tanya Gandhi
- Department of Comparative Biomedical Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70806, USA
| | - Cade R Canepa
- Department of Comparative Biomedical Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70806, USA
| | - Tolulope T Adeyelu
- Department of Comparative Biomedical Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70806, USA
| | - Philip A Adeniyi
- Department of Comparative Biomedical Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70806, USA
| | - Charles C Lee
- Department of Comparative Biomedical Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70806, USA
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15
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Guilfoyle J, Winston M, Sideris J, Martin GE, Nayar K, Bush L, Wassink T, Losh M. Childhood Academic Performance: A Potential Marker of Genetic Liability to Autism. J Autism Dev Disord 2023; 53:1989-2005. [PMID: 35194728 PMCID: PMC9932999 DOI: 10.1007/s10803-022-05459-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 01/20/2022] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
Abstract
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a heritable neurodevelopmental disorder, confers genetic liability that is often expressed among relatives through subclinical, genetically-meaningful traits, or endophenotypes. For instance, relative to controls, parents of individuals with ASD differ in language-related skills, with differences emerging in childhood. To examine ASD-related endophenotypes, this study investigated developmental academic profiles among clinically unaffected siblings of individuals with ASD (n = 29). Lower performance in language-related skills among siblings mirrored previously-reported patterns among parents, which were also associated with greater subclinical ASD-related traits in themselves and their parents, and with greater symptom severity in their sibling with ASD. Findings demonstrated specific phenotypes, derived from standardized academic testing, that may represent childhood indicators of genetic liability to ASD in first-degree relatives.
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Affiliation(s)
- Janna Guilfoyle
- Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, 2240 N Campus Dr., Evanston, IL, 60208, USA
| | - Molly Winston
- Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, 2240 N Campus Dr., Evanston, IL, 60208, USA
| | - John Sideris
- University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA
| | | | - Kritika Nayar
- Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, 2240 N Campus Dr., Evanston, IL, 60208, USA
| | - Lauren Bush
- Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, 2240 N Campus Dr., Evanston, IL, 60208, USA
| | | | - Molly Losh
- Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, 2240 N Campus Dr., Evanston, IL, 60208, USA.
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16
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Bustos FJ, Pandian S, Haensgen H, Zhao JP, Strouf H, Heidenreich M, Swiech L, Deverman B, Gradinaru V, Zhang F, Constantine-Paton M. Removal of a genomic duplication by double-nicking CRISPR restores synaptic transmission and behavior in the MyosinVA mutant mouse Flailer. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.04.28.538685. [PMID: 37163068 PMCID: PMC10168395 DOI: 10.1101/2023.04.28.538685] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/11/2023]
Abstract
Copy number variations, and particularly duplications of genomic regions, have been strongly associated with various neurodegenerative conditions including autism spectrum disorder (ASD). These genetic variations have been found to have a significant impact on brain development and function, which can lead to the emergence of neurological and behavioral symptoms. Developing strategies to target these genomic duplications has been challenging, as the presence of endogenous copies of the duplicate genes often complicates the editing strategies. Using the ASD and anxiety mouse model Flailer, that contains a duplication working as a dominant negative for MyoVa, we demonstrate the use of DN-CRISPRs to remove a 700bp genomic duplication in vitro and in vivo . Importantly, DN-CRISPRs have not been used to remove more gene regions <100bp successfully and with high efficiency. We found that editing the flailer gene in primary cortical neurons reverts synaptic transport and transmission defects. Moreover, long-term depression (LTD), disrupted in Flailer animals, is recovered after gene edition. Delivery of DN-CRISPRs in vivo shows that local delivery to the ventral hippocampus can rescues some of the mutant behaviors, while intracerebroventricular delivery, completely recovers Flailer animal phenotype associated to anxiety and ASD. Our results demonstrate the potential of DN-CRISPR to efficiently (>60% editing in vivo) remove large genomic duplications, working as a new gene therapy approach for treating neurodegenerative diseases.
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17
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Abstract
Schizophrenia is a neurodevelopmental disorder with genetic and environmental factors involved in its aetiology. Genetic liability contributing to the development of schizophrenia is a subject of extensive research activity, as reliable data regarding its aetiology would enable the improvement of its therapy and the development of new methods of treatment. A multitude of studies in this field focus on genetic variants, such as copy number variations (CNVs) or single-nucleotide variants (SNVs). Certain genetic disorders caused by CNVs including 22q11.2 microdeletion syndrome, Burnside-Butler syndrome (15q11.2 BP1-BP2 microdeletion) or 1q21.1 microduplication/microdeletion syndrome are associated with a higher risk of developing schizophrenia. In this article, we provide a unifying framework linking these CNVs and their associated genetic disorders with schizophrenia and its various neural and behavioural abnormalities.
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18
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Arslan A, Fang Z, Wang M, Tan Y, Cheng Z, Chen X, Guan Y, J. Pisani L, Yoo B, Bejerano G, Peltz G. Analysis of structural variation among inbred mouse strains. BMC Genomics 2023; 24:97. [PMID: 36864393 PMCID: PMC9983223 DOI: 10.1186/s12864-023-09197-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/08/2022] [Accepted: 02/17/2023] [Indexed: 03/04/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND 'Long read' sequencing methods have been used to identify previously uncharacterized structural variants that cause human genetic diseases. Therefore, we investigated whether long read sequencing could facilitate genetic analysis of murine models for human diseases. RESULTS The genomes of six inbred strains (BTBR T + Itpr3tf/J, 129Sv1/J, C57BL/6/J, Balb/c/J, A/J, SJL/J) were analyzed using long read sequencing. Our results revealed that (i) Structural variants are very abundant within the genome of inbred strains (4.8 per gene) and (ii) that we cannot accurately infer whether structural variants are present using conventional short read genomic sequence data, even when nearby SNP alleles are known. The advantage of having a more complete map was demonstrated by analyzing the genomic sequence of BTBR mice. Based upon this analysis, knockin mice were generated and used to characterize a BTBR-unique 8-bp deletion within Draxin that contributes to the BTBR neuroanatomic abnormalities, which resemble human autism spectrum disorder. CONCLUSION A more complete map of the pattern of genetic variation among inbred strains, which is produced by long read genomic sequencing of the genomes of additional inbred strains, could facilitate genetic discovery when murine models of human diseases are analyzed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ahmed Arslan
- grid.168010.e0000000419368956Department of Anesthesia, Pain and Perioperative Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, 94305 Stanford, CA USA
| | - Zhuoqing Fang
- grid.168010.e0000000419368956Department of Anesthesia, Pain and Perioperative Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, 94305 Stanford, CA USA
| | - Meiyue Wang
- grid.168010.e0000000419368956Department of Anesthesia, Pain and Perioperative Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, 94305 Stanford, CA USA
| | - Yalun Tan
- grid.168010.e0000000419368956Department of Anesthesia, Pain and Perioperative Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, 94305 Stanford, CA USA
| | - Zhuanfen Cheng
- grid.168010.e0000000419368956Department of Anesthesia, Pain and Perioperative Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, 94305 Stanford, CA USA
| | - Xinyu Chen
- grid.168010.e0000000419368956Department of Anesthesia, Pain and Perioperative Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, 94305 Stanford, CA USA
| | - Yuan Guan
- grid.168010.e0000000419368956Department of Anesthesia, Pain and Perioperative Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, 94305 Stanford, CA USA
| | | | - Boyoung Yoo
- Dept. of Computer Science, Stanford School of Engineering, 94305 Stanford, CA USA
| | - Gill Bejerano
- Dept. of Computer Science, Stanford School of Engineering, 94305 Stanford, CA USA ,grid.168010.e0000000419368956Developmental Biology, Biomedical Data Science, Stanford School of Medicine, 94305 Stanford, CA USA
| | - Gary Peltz
- Department of Anesthesia, Pain and Perioperative Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, 94305, Stanford, CA, USA.
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19
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PTCHD1 Binds Cholesterol but Not Sonic Hedgehog, Suggesting a Distinct Cellular Function. Int J Mol Sci 2023; 24:ijms24032682. [PMID: 36769003 PMCID: PMC9917202 DOI: 10.3390/ijms24032682] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/29/2022] [Revised: 01/09/2023] [Accepted: 01/23/2023] [Indexed: 02/04/2023] Open
Abstract
Deleterious mutations in the X-linked Patched domain-containing 1 (PTCHD1) gene may account for up to 1% of autism cases. Despite this, the PTCHD1 protein remains poorly understood. Structural similarities to Patched family proteins point to a role in sterol transport, but this hypothesis has not been verified experimentally. Additionally, PTCHD1 has been suggested to be involved in Hedgehog signalling, but thus far, the experimental results have been conflicting. To enable a variety of biochemical and structural experiments, we developed a method for expressing PTCHD1 in Spodoptera frugiperda cells, solubilising it in glycol-diosgenin, and purifying it to homogeneity. In vitro and in silico experiments show that PTCHD1 function is not interchangeable with Patched 1 (PTCH1) in canonical Hedgehog signalling, since it does not repress Smoothened in Ptch1-/- mouse embryonic fibroblasts and does not bind Sonic Hedgehog. However, we found that PTCHD1 binds cholesterol similarly to PTCH1. Furthermore, we identified 13 PTCHD1-specific protein interactors through co-immunoprecipitation and demonstrated a link to cell stress responses and RNA stress granule formation. Thus, our results support the notion that despite structural similarities to other Patched family proteins, PTCHD1 may have a distinct cellular function.
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Papuc SM, Erbescu A, Glangher A, Streata I, Riza AL, Budisteanu M, Arghir A. Autistic Behavior as Novel Clinical Finding in OFD1 Syndrome. Genes (Basel) 2023; 14:genes14020327. [PMID: 36833254 PMCID: PMC9957277 DOI: 10.3390/genes14020327] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/09/2022] [Revised: 01/11/2023] [Accepted: 01/24/2023] [Indexed: 01/31/2023] Open
Abstract
Orofaciodigital syndrome I (OFD1-MIM #311200) is a rare ciliopathy characterized by facial dysmorphism, oral cavity, digit, and brain malformations, and cognitive deficits. OFD1 syndrome is an X-linked dominant disorder reported mostly in females. The gene responsible for this condition, OFD1 centriole and centriolar satellite protein (OFD1), is involved in primary cilia formation and several cilia-independent biological processes. The functional and structural integrity of the cilia impacts critical brain development processes, explaining the broad range of neurodevelopmental anomalies in ciliopathy patients. As several psychiatric conditions, such as autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and schizophrenia, are neurodevelopmental in nature, their connections with cilia roles are worth exploring. Moreover, several cilia genes have been associated with behavioral disorders, such as autism. We report on a three-year-old girl with a complex phenotype that includes oral malformations, severe speech delay, dysmorphic features, developmental delay, autism, and bilateral periventricular nodular heterotopia, presenting a de novo pathogenic variant in the OFD1 gene. Furthermore, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of autistic behavior in a female patient with OFD1 syndrome. We propose that autistic behavior should be considered a potential feature of this syndrome and that active screening for early signs of autism might prove beneficial for OFD1 syndrome patients.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sorina Mihaela Papuc
- Medical Genetics Laboratory, Victor Babes National Institute of Pathology, 050096 Bucharest, Romania
- Correspondence: ; Tel.: +40-213-194528
| | - Alina Erbescu
- Medical Genetics Laboratory, Victor Babes National Institute of Pathology, 050096 Bucharest, Romania
| | - Adelina Glangher
- Psychiatry Research Laboratory, Prof. Dr. Alex. Obregia Clinical Hospital of Psychiatry, 041914 Bucharest, Romania
| | - Ioana Streata
- Regional Centre of Medical Genetics Dolj, Emergency County Hospital Craiova, 200642 Craiova, Romania
- Laboratory of Human Genomics, University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Craiova, 200638 Craiova, Romania
| | - Anca-Lelia Riza
- Regional Centre of Medical Genetics Dolj, Emergency County Hospital Craiova, 200642 Craiova, Romania
- Laboratory of Human Genomics, University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Craiova, 200638 Craiova, Romania
| | - Magdalena Budisteanu
- Medical Genetics Laboratory, Victor Babes National Institute of Pathology, 050096 Bucharest, Romania
- Psychiatry Research Laboratory, Prof. Dr. Alex. Obregia Clinical Hospital of Psychiatry, 041914 Bucharest, Romania
- Department of Genetics, Faculty of Medicine, Titu Maiorescu University, 031593 Bucharest, Romania
| | - Aurora Arghir
- Medical Genetics Laboratory, Victor Babes National Institute of Pathology, 050096 Bucharest, Romania
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Alijanpour S, Miryounesi M, Ghafouri-Fard S. The role of excitatory amino acid transporter 2 (EAAT2) in epilepsy and other neurological disorders. Metab Brain Dis 2023; 38:1-16. [PMID: 36173507 DOI: 10.1007/s11011-022-01091-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/14/2022] [Accepted: 09/15/2022] [Indexed: 02/03/2023]
Abstract
Glutamate is the major excitatory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system (CNS). Excitatory amino acid transporters (EAATs) have important roles in the uptake of glutamate and termination of glutamatergic transmission. Up to now, five EAAT isoforms (EAAT1-5) have been identified in mammals. The main focus of this review is EAAT2. This protein has an important role in the pathoetiology of epilepsy. De novo dominant mutations, as well as inherited recessive mutation in this gene, have been associated with epilepsy. Moreover, dysregulation of this protein is implicated in a range of neurological diseases, namely amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, alzheimer's disease, parkinson's disease, schizophrenia, epilepsy, and autism. In this review, we summarize the role of EAAT2 in epilepsy and other neurological disorders, then provide an overview of the therapeutic modulation of this protein.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sahar Alijanpour
- Department of Medical Genetics, Faculty of Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| | - Mohammad Miryounesi
- Department of Medical Genetics, Faculty of Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| | - Soudeh Ghafouri-Fard
- Department of Medical Genetics, Faculty of Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
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Bai Y, Wang H, Li C. SAPAP Scaffold Proteins: From Synaptic Function to Neuropsychiatric Disorders. Cells 2022; 11:cells11233815. [PMID: 36497075 PMCID: PMC9740047 DOI: 10.3390/cells11233815] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/30/2022] [Revised: 11/24/2022] [Accepted: 11/25/2022] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Excitatory (glutamatergic) synaptic transmission underlies many aspects of brain activity and the genesis of normal human behavior. The postsynaptic scaffolding proteins SAP90/PSD-95-associated proteins (SAPAPs), which are abundant components of the postsynaptic density (PSD) at excitatory synapses, play critical roles in synaptic structure, formation, development, plasticity, and signaling. The convergence of human genetic data with recent in vitro and in vivo animal model data indicates that mutations in the genes encoding SAPAP1-4 are associated with neurological and psychiatric disorders, and that dysfunction of SAPAP scaffolding proteins may contribute to the pathogenesis of various neuropsychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorders, obsessive compulsive disorders, Alzheimer's disease, and bipolar disorder. Here, we review recent major genetic, epigenetic, molecular, behavioral, electrophysiological, and circuitry studies that have advanced our knowledge by clarifying the roles of SAPAP proteins at the synapses, providing new insights into the mechanistic links to neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yunxia Bai
- Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics (STCSM & MOE), Affiliated Mental Health Center (ECNU), School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China
- Shanghai Changning Mental Health Center, Shanghai 200335, China
| | - Huimin Wang
- Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics (STCSM & MOE), Affiliated Mental Health Center (ECNU), School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China
- Shanghai Changning Mental Health Center, Shanghai 200335, China
- NYU-ECNU Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science at NYU Shanghai, Shanghai 200062, China
| | - Chunxia Li
- Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics (STCSM & MOE), Affiliated Mental Health Center (ECNU), School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China
- Shanghai Changning Mental Health Center, Shanghai 200335, China
- Correspondence:
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23
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Identification of the common neurobiological process disturbed in genetic and non-genetic models for autism spectrum disorders. Cell Mol Life Sci 2022; 79:589. [PMID: 36371739 DOI: 10.1007/s00018-022-04617-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/22/2022] [Revised: 10/11/2022] [Accepted: 10/28/2022] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
Abstract
Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are neurodevelopmental disorders. Genetic factors, along with non-genetic triggers, have been shown to play a causative role. Despite the various causes, a triad of common symptoms defines individuals with ASD; pervasive social impairments, impaired social communication, and repeated sensory-motor behaviors. Therefore, it can be hypothesized that different genetic and environmental factors converge on a single hypothetical neurobiological process that determines these behaviors. However, the cellular and subcellular signature of this process is, so far, not well understood. Here, we performed a comparative study using "omics" approaches to identify altered proteins and, thereby, biological processes affected in ASD. In this study, we mined publicly available repositories for genetic mouse model data sets, identifying six that were suitable, and compared them with in-house derived proteomics data from prenatal zinc (Zn)-deficient mice, a non-genetic mouse model with ASD-like behavior. Findings derived from these comparisons were further validated using in vitro neuronal cell culture models for ASD. We could show that a protein network, centered on VAMP2, STX1A, RAB3A, CPLX2, and AKAP5, is a key convergence point mediating synaptic vesicle release and recycling, a process affected across all analyzed models. Moreover, we demonstrated that Zn availability has predictable functional effects on synaptic vesicle release in line with the alteration of proteins in this network. In addition, drugs that target kinases, reported to regulate key proteins in this network, similarly impacted the proteins' levels and distribution. We conclude that altered synaptic stability and plasticity through abnormal synaptic vesicle dynamics and function may be the common neurobiological denominator of the shared behavioral abnormalities in ASD and, therefore, a prime drug target for developing therapeutic strategies.
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24
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Trost B, Thiruvahindrapuram B, Chan AJS, Engchuan W, Higginbotham EJ, Howe JL, Loureiro LO, Reuter MS, Roshandel D, Whitney J, Zarrei M, Bookman M, Somerville C, Shaath R, Abdi M, Aliyev E, Patel RV, Nalpathamkalam T, Pellecchia G, Hamdan O, Kaur G, Wang Z, MacDonald JR, Wei J, Sung WWL, Lamoureux S, Hoang N, Selvanayagam T, Deflaux N, Geng M, Ghaffari S, Bates J, Young EJ, Ding Q, Shum C, D'Abate L, Bradley CA, Rutherford A, Aguda V, Apresto B, Chen N, Desai S, Du X, Fong MLY, Pullenayegum S, Samler K, Wang T, Ho K, Paton T, Pereira SL, Herbrick JA, Wintle RF, Fuerth J, Noppornpitak J, Ward H, Magee P, Al Baz A, Kajendirarajah U, Kapadia S, Vlasblom J, Valluri M, Green J, Seifer V, Quirbach M, Rennie O, Kelley E, Masjedi N, Lord C, Szego MJ, Zawati MH, Lang M, Strug LJ, Marshall CR, Costain G, Calli K, Iaboni A, Yusuf A, Ambrozewicz P, Gallagher L, Amaral DG, Brian J, Elsabbagh M, Georgiades S, Messinger DS, Ozonoff S, Sebat J, Sjaarda C, Smith IM, Szatmari P, Zwaigenbaum L, Kushki A, Frazier TW, Vorstman JAS, Fakhro KA, Fernandez BA, Lewis MES, Weksberg R, Fiume M, Yuen RKC, Anagnostou E, Sondheimer N, Glazer D, Hartley DM, Scherer SW. Genomic architecture of autism from comprehensive whole-genome sequence annotation. Cell 2022; 185:4409-4427.e18. [PMID: 36368308 PMCID: PMC10726699 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2022.10.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 67] [Impact Index Per Article: 33.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/05/2022] [Revised: 08/30/2022] [Accepted: 10/07/2022] [Indexed: 11/11/2022]
Abstract
Fully understanding autism spectrum disorder (ASD) genetics requires whole-genome sequencing (WGS). We present the latest release of the Autism Speaks MSSNG resource, which includes WGS data from 5,100 individuals with ASD and 6,212 non-ASD parents and siblings (total n = 11,312). Examining a wide variety of genetic variants in MSSNG and the Simons Simplex Collection (SSC; n = 9,205), we identified ASD-associated rare variants in 718/5,100 individuals with ASD from MSSNG (14.1%) and 350/2,419 from SSC (14.5%). Considering genomic architecture, 52% were nuclear sequence-level variants, 46% were nuclear structural variants (including copy-number variants, inversions, large insertions, uniparental isodisomies, and tandem repeat expansions), and 2% were mitochondrial variants. Our study provides a guidebook for exploring genotype-phenotype correlations in families who carry ASD-associated rare variants and serves as an entry point to the expanded studies required to dissect the etiology in the ∼85% of the ASD population that remain idiopathic.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brett Trost
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada; Genetics and Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | | | - Ada J S Chan
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada; Genetics and Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Worrawat Engchuan
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada; Genetics and Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Edward J Higginbotham
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada; Genetics and Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Jennifer L Howe
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Livia O Loureiro
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada; Genetics and Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Miriam S Reuter
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada; Genetics and Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada; CGEn, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Delnaz Roshandel
- Genetics and Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Joe Whitney
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Mehdi Zarrei
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada; Genetics and Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | | | - Cherith Somerville
- Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 1X8, Canada
| | - Rulan Shaath
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Mona Abdi
- Department of Human Genetics, Sidra Medicine, Doha, Qatar; College of Health and Life Sciences, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Doha, Qatar
| | - Elbay Aliyev
- Department of Human Genetics, Sidra Medicine, Doha, Qatar
| | - Rohan V Patel
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Thomas Nalpathamkalam
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Giovanna Pellecchia
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Omar Hamdan
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Gaganjot Kaur
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Zhuozhi Wang
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Jeffrey R MacDonald
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - John Wei
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Wilson W L Sung
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Sylvia Lamoureux
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Ny Hoang
- Genetics and Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada; Autism Research Unit, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 1X8, Canada; Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 1A8, Canada; Department of Genetic Counselling, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 1X8, Canada
| | - Thanuja Selvanayagam
- Genetics and Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada; Autism Research Unit, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 1X8, Canada; Department of Genetic Counselling, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 1X8, Canada
| | - Nicole Deflaux
- Verily Life Sciences, South San Francisco, CA 94080, USA
| | - Melissa Geng
- Genetics and Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada; Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 1A8, Canada
| | - Siavash Ghaffari
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada; Genetics and Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - John Bates
- Verily Life Sciences, South San Francisco, CA 94080, USA
| | - Edwin J Young
- Genome Diagnostics, Department of Paediatric Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 1X8, Canada; Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 1X8, Canada
| | - Qiliang Ding
- Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 1X8, Canada
| | - Carole Shum
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada; Genetics and Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Lia D'Abate
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada; Genetics and Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Clarrisa A Bradley
- Genetics and Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada; Neurosciences and Mental Health, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Annabel Rutherford
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada; Genetics and Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada; Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 1A8, Canada
| | - Vernie Aguda
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Beverly Apresto
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Nan Chen
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Sachin Desai
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Xiaoyan Du
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Matthew L Y Fong
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Sanjeev Pullenayegum
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Kozue Samler
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Ting Wang
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Karen Ho
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Tara Paton
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Sergio L Pereira
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Jo-Anne Herbrick
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Richard F Wintle
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | - Olivia Rennie
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Elizabeth Kelley
- Department of Psychology, Queen's University, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada; Department of Psychiatry, Queen's University, Kingston, ON K7L 7X3, Canada
| | - Nina Masjedi
- Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90024, USA
| | - Catherine Lord
- Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90024, USA
| | - Michael J Szego
- Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 1A8, Canada; Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5G 1V7, Canada; Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5T 3M7, Canada
| | - Ma'n H Zawati
- Department of Human Genetics, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3A 0C7, Canada
| | - Michael Lang
- Department of Human Genetics, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3A 0C7, Canada
| | - Lisa J Strug
- Genetics and Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada; Department of Statistical Sciences, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 3G3, Canada
| | - Christian R Marshall
- Genome Diagnostics, Department of Paediatric Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 1X8, Canada; Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 1A8, Canada
| | - Gregory Costain
- Genetics and Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada; Division of Clinical and Metabolic Genetics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 1X8, Canada; Department of Pediatrics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5G 1X8, Canada
| | - Kristina Calli
- Department of Medical Genetics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6H 3N1, Canada; BC Children's Hospital Research Institute, Vancouver, BC V5Z 4H4, Canada
| | - Alana Iaboni
- Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, Toronto, ON M4G 1R8, Canada
| | - Afiqah Yusuf
- Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3A 2B4, Canada
| | - Patricia Ambrozewicz
- Autism Research Unit, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 1X8, Canada; Department of Psychology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 1X8, Canada
| | - Louise Gallagher
- Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland; Department of Psychiatry, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 1X8, Canada; Child, Youth and Family Services, The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, ON M6J 1H4, Canada; Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5T 1R8, Canada
| | - David G Amaral
- MIND Institute, University of California, Davis, Sacramento, CA 95817, USA; Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of California, Davis, Sacramento, CA 95817, USA
| | - Jessica Brian
- Department of Pediatrics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5G 1X8, Canada; Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, Toronto, ON M4G 1R8, Canada
| | - Mayada Elsabbagh
- Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3A 2B4, Canada
| | - Stelios Georgiades
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8N 3K7, Canada
| | | | - Sally Ozonoff
- MIND Institute, University of California, Davis, Sacramento, CA 95817, USA; Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of California, Davis, Sacramento, CA 95817, USA
| | - Jonathan Sebat
- Department of Psychiatry and Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA
| | - Calvin Sjaarda
- Department of Psychiatry, Queen's University, Kingston, ON K7L 7X3, Canada; Queen's Genomics Lab at Ongwanada, Queen's University, Kingston, ON K7M 8A6, Canada
| | - Isabel M Smith
- Department of Pediatrics, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS B3H 4R2, Canada; IWK Health Centre, Halifax, NS B3K 6R8, Canada
| | - Peter Szatmari
- Department of Psychiatry, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 1X8, Canada; Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5T 1R8, Canada; Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, ON M6J 1H4, Canada
| | - Lonnie Zwaigenbaum
- Department of Pediatrics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 1C9, Canada
| | - Azadeh Kushki
- Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, Toronto, ON M4G 1R8, Canada; Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 3G9, Canada
| | - Thomas W Frazier
- Autism Speaks, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA; Department of Psychology, John Carroll University, Cleveland, OH 44118, USA
| | - Jacob A S Vorstman
- Genetics and Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada; Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5T 1R8, Canada
| | - Khalid A Fakhro
- Department of Human Genetics, Sidra Medicine, Doha, Qatar; College of Health and Life Sciences, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Doha, Qatar; Department of Genetic Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, Doha, Qatar
| | - Bridget A Fernandez
- Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90027, USA; Keck School of Medicine of USC, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA
| | - M E Suzanne Lewis
- Department of Medical Genetics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6H 3N1, Canada; BC Children's Hospital Research Institute, Vancouver, BC V5Z 4H4, Canada
| | - Rosanna Weksberg
- Division of Clinical and Metabolic Genetics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 1X8, Canada; Department of Pediatrics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5G 1X8, Canada
| | | | - Ryan K C Yuen
- Genetics and Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada; Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 1A8, Canada
| | - Evdokia Anagnostou
- Department of Pediatrics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5G 1X8, Canada; Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, Toronto, ON M4G 1R8, Canada
| | - Neal Sondheimer
- Genetics and Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada; Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 1A8, Canada; Department of Pediatrics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5G 1X8, Canada
| | - David Glazer
- Verily Life Sciences, South San Francisco, CA 94080, USA
| | | | - Stephen W Scherer
- The Centre for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada; Genetics and Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada; Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 1A8, Canada; McLaughlin Centre, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada.
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25
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Yang Y, Wang C, Liu L, Buxbaum J, He Z, Ionita-Laza I. KnockoffTrio: A knockoff framework for the identification of putative causal variants in genome-wide association studies with trio design. Am J Hum Genet 2022; 109:1761-1776. [PMID: 36150388 PMCID: PMC9606389 DOI: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2022.08.013] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/11/2022] [Accepted: 08/24/2022] [Indexed: 01/25/2023] Open
Abstract
Family-based designs can eliminate confounding due to population substructure and can distinguish direct from indirect genetic effects, but these designs are underpowered due to limited sample sizes. Here, we propose KnockoffTrio, a statistical method to identify putative causal genetic variants for father-mother-child trio design built upon a recently developed knockoff framework in statistics. KnockoffTrio controls the false discovery rate (FDR) in the presence of arbitrary correlations among tests and is less conservative and thus more powerful than the conventional methods that control the family-wise error rate via Bonferroni correction. Furthermore, KnockoffTrio is not restricted to family-based association tests and can be used in conjunction with more powerful, potentially nonlinear models to improve the power of standard family-based tests. We show, using empirical simulations, that KnockoffTrio can prioritize causal variants over associations due to linkage disequilibrium and can provide protection against confounding due to population stratification. In applications to 14,200 trios from three study cohorts for autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), including AGP, SPARK, and SSC, we show that KnockoffTrio can identify multiple significant associations that are missed by conventional tests applied to the same data. In particular, we replicate known ASD association signals with variants in several genes such as MACROD2, NRXN1, PRKAR1B, CADM2, PCDH9, and DOCK4 and identify additional associations with variants in other genes including ARHGEF10, SLC28A1, ZNF589, and HINT1 at FDR 10%.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yi Yang
- Department of Biostatistics, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA; Department of Biostatistics, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China; School of Data Science, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Chen Wang
- Department of Biostatistics, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA
| | - Linxi Liu
- Department of Statistics, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA
| | - Joseph Buxbaum
- Departments of Psychiatry, Neuroscience, and Genetics and Genomic Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA
| | - Zihuai He
- Quantitative Sciences Unit, Department of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA; Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
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26
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Weber CF, Lake EMR, Haider SP, Mozayan A, Mukherjee P, Scheinost D, Bamford NS, Ment L, Constable T, Payabvash S. Age-dependent white matter microstructural disintegrity in autism spectrum disorder. Front Neurosci 2022; 16:957018. [PMID: 36161157 PMCID: PMC9490315 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2022.957018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/30/2022] [Accepted: 08/08/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
There has been increasing evidence of White Matter (WM) microstructural disintegrity and connectome disruption in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). We evaluated the effects of age on WM microstructure by examining Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) metrics and connectome Edge Density (ED) in a large dataset of ASD and control patients from different age cohorts. N = 583 subjects from four studies from the National Database of Autism Research were included, representing four different age groups: (1) A Longitudinal MRI Study of Infants at Risk of Autism [infants, median age: 7 (interquartile range 1) months, n = 155], (2) Biomarkers of Autism at 12 months [toddlers, 32 (11)m, n = 102], (3) Multimodal Developmental Neurogenetics of Females with ASD [adolescents, 13.1 (5.3) years, n = 230], (4) Atypical Late Neurodevelopment in Autism [young adults, 19.1 (10.7)y, n = 96]. For each subject, we created Fractional Anisotropy (FA), Mean- (MD), Radial- (RD), and Axial Diffusivity (AD) maps as well as ED maps. We performed voxel-wise and tract-based analyses to assess the effects of age, ASD diagnosis and sex on DTI metrics and connectome ED. We also optimized, trained, tested, and validated different combinations of machine learning classifiers and dimensionality reduction algorithms for prediction of ASD diagnoses based on tract-based DTI and ED metrics. There is an age-dependent increase in FA and a decline in MD and RD across WM tracts in all four age cohorts, as well as an ED increase in toddlers and adolescents. After correction for age and sex, we found an ASD-related decrease in FA and ED only in adolescents and young adults, but not in infants or toddlers. While DTI abnormalities were mostly limited to the corpus callosum, connectomes showed a more widespread ASD-related decrease in ED. Finally, the best performing machine-leaning classification model achieved an area under the receiver operating curve of 0.70 in an independent validation cohort. Our results suggest that ASD-related WM microstructural disintegrity becomes evident in adolescents and young adults-but not in infants and toddlers. The ASD-related decrease in ED demonstrates a more widespread involvement of the connectome than DTI metrics, with the most striking differences being localized in the corpus callosum.
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Affiliation(s)
- Clara F. Weber
- Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, United States,Social Neuroscience Lab, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Lübeck University, Lübeck, Germany
| | - Evelyn M. R. Lake
- Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, United States
| | - Stefan P. Haider
- Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, United States,Department of Otorhinolaryngology, University Hospital, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany
| | - Ali Mozayan
- Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, United States
| | - Pratik Mukherjee
- Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States
| | - Dustin Scheinost
- Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, United States
| | - Nigel S. Bamford
- Departments of Pediatrics, Neurology, Cellular and Molecular Physiology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, United States
| | - Laura Ment
- Departments of Pediatrics, Neurology, Cellular and Molecular Physiology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, United States
| | - Todd Constable
- Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, United States
| | - Seyedmehdi Payabvash
- Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, United States,*Correspondence: Seyedmehdi Payabvash,
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27
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Fair SR, Schwind W, Julian DL, Biel A, Guo G, Rutherford R, Ramadesikan S, Westfall J, Miller KE, Kararoudi MN, Hickey SE, Mosher TM, McBride KL, Neinast R, Fitch J, Lee DA, White P, Wilson RK, Bedrosian TA, Koboldt DC, Hester ME. Cerebral organoids containing an AUTS2 missense variant model microcephaly. Brain 2022; 146:387-404. [PMID: 35802027 PMCID: PMC9825673 DOI: 10.1093/brain/awac244] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/02/2021] [Revised: 05/22/2022] [Accepted: 06/22/2022] [Indexed: 01/12/2023] Open
Abstract
Variants in the AUTS2 gene are associated with a broad spectrum of neurological conditions characterized by intellectual disability, microcephaly, and congenital brain malformations. Here, we use a human cerebral organoid model to investigate the pathophysiology of a heterozygous de novo missense AUTS2 variant identified in a patient with multiple neurological impairments including primary microcephaly and profound intellectual disability. Proband cerebral organoids exhibit reduced growth, deficits in neural progenitor cell (NPC) proliferation and disrupted NPC polarity within ventricular zone-like regions compared to control cerebral organoids. We used CRISPR-Cas9-mediated gene editing to correct this variant and demonstrate rescue of impaired organoid growth and NPC proliferative deficits. Single-cell RNA sequencing revealed a marked reduction of G1/S transition gene expression and alterations in WNT-β-catenin signalling within proband NPCs, uncovering a novel role for AUTS2 in NPCs during human cortical development. Collectively, these results underscore the value of cerebral organoids to investigate molecular mechanisms underlying AUTS2 syndrome.
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Affiliation(s)
- Summer R Fair
- The Steve and Cindy Rasmussen Institute for Genomic Medicine, Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH, USA
| | - Wesley Schwind
- The Steve and Cindy Rasmussen Institute for Genomic Medicine, Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH, USA
| | - Dominic L Julian
- The Steve and Cindy Rasmussen Institute for Genomic Medicine, Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH, USA
| | - Alecia Biel
- The Steve and Cindy Rasmussen Institute for Genomic Medicine, Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH, USA
| | - Gongbo Guo
- The Steve and Cindy Rasmussen Institute for Genomic Medicine, Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH, USA
| | - Ryan Rutherford
- The Steve and Cindy Rasmussen Institute for Genomic Medicine, Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH, USA
| | - Swetha Ramadesikan
- The Steve and Cindy Rasmussen Institute for Genomic Medicine, Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH, USA
| | - Jesse Westfall
- The Steve and Cindy Rasmussen Institute for Genomic Medicine, Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH, USA
| | - Katherine E Miller
- The Steve and Cindy Rasmussen Institute for Genomic Medicine, Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH, USA
| | - Meisam Naeimi Kararoudi
- Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Diseases, Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH, USA,Department of Pediatrics, The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Columbus, OH, USA
| | - Scott E Hickey
- Department of Pediatrics, The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Columbus, OH, USA,Division of Genetic and Genomic Medicine, Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH, USA
| | - Theresa Mihalic Mosher
- The Steve and Cindy Rasmussen Institute for Genomic Medicine, Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH, USA
| | - Kim L McBride
- Department of Pediatrics, The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Columbus, OH, USA,Division of Genetic and Genomic Medicine, Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH, USA,Center for Cardiovascular Research, Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH, USA
| | - Reid Neinast
- Center for Cardiovascular Research, Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH, USA
| | - James Fitch
- The Steve and Cindy Rasmussen Institute for Genomic Medicine, Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH, USA
| | - Dean A Lee
- Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Diseases, Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH, USA,Department of Pediatrics, The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Columbus, OH, USA
| | - Peter White
- The Steve and Cindy Rasmussen Institute for Genomic Medicine, Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH, USA,Department of Pediatrics, The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Columbus, OH, USA
| | - Richard K Wilson
- The Steve and Cindy Rasmussen Institute for Genomic Medicine, Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH, USA,Department of Pediatrics, The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Columbus, OH, USA
| | - Tracy A Bedrosian
- The Steve and Cindy Rasmussen Institute for Genomic Medicine, Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH, USA,Department of Pediatrics, The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Columbus, OH, USA
| | - Daniel C Koboldt
- Correspondence may also be addressed to: Daniel C. Koboldt, MS E-mail:
| | - Mark E Hester
- Correspondence to: Mark E. Hester, PhD 575 Children’s Crossroad Columbus OH 43205-2716, USA E-mail:
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28
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Iyshwarya B, Vajagathali M, Ramakrishnan V. Investigation of Genetic Polymorphism in Autism Spectrum Disorder: a Pathogenesis of the Neurodevelopmental Disorder. ADVANCES IN NEURODEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS 2022; 6:136-146. [DOI: 10.1007/s41252-022-00251-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 03/12/2022] [Indexed: 12/07/2023]
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29
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Ochi S, Manabe S, Kikkawa T, Osumi N. Thirty Years' History since the Discovery of Pax6: From Central Nervous System Development to Neurodevelopmental Disorders. Int J Mol Sci 2022; 23:6115. [PMID: 35682795 PMCID: PMC9181425 DOI: 10.3390/ijms23116115] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/03/2022] [Revised: 05/19/2022] [Accepted: 05/27/2022] [Indexed: 12/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Pax6 is a sequence-specific DNA binding transcription factor that positively and negatively regulates transcription and is expressed in multiple cell types in the developing and adult central nervous system (CNS). As indicated by the morphological and functional abnormalities in spontaneous Pax6 mutant rodents, Pax6 plays pivotal roles in various biological processes in the CNS. At the initial stage of CNS development, Pax6 is responsible for brain patterning along the anteroposterior and dorsoventral axes of the telencephalon. Regarding the anteroposterior axis, Pax6 is expressed inversely to Emx2 and Coup-TF1, and Pax6 mutant mice exhibit a rostral shift, resulting in an alteration of the size of certain cortical areas. Pax6 and its downstream genes play important roles in balancing the proliferation and differentiation of neural stem cells. The Pax6 gene was originally identified in mice and humans 30 years ago via genetic analyses of the eye phenotypes. The human PAX6 gene was discovered in patients who suffer from WAGR syndrome (i.e., Wilms tumor, aniridia, genital ridge defects, mental retardation). Mutations of the human PAX6 gene have also been reported to be associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and intellectual disability. Rodents that lack the Pax6 gene exhibit diverse neural phenotypes, which might lead to a better understanding of human pathology and neurodevelopmental disorders. This review describes the expression and function of Pax6 during brain development, and their implications for neuropathology.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | - Noriko Osumi
- Department of Developmental Neuroscience, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai 980-8575, Japan; (S.O.); (S.M.); (T.K.)
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30
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Levy KA, Weisz ED, Jongens TA. Loss of neurexin-1 in Drosophila melanogaster results in altered energy metabolism and increased seizure susceptibility. Hum Mol Genet 2022; 31:3422-3438. [PMID: 35617143 PMCID: PMC9558836 DOI: 10.1093/hmg/ddac115] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/08/2021] [Revised: 04/28/2022] [Accepted: 05/09/2022] [Indexed: 12/04/2022] Open
Abstract
Although autism is typically characterized by differences in language, social interaction and restrictive, repetitive behaviors, it is becoming more well known in the field that alterations in energy metabolism and mitochondrial function are comorbid disorders in autism. The synaptic cell adhesion molecule, neurexin-1 (NRXN1), has previously been implicated in autism, and here we show that in Drosophila melanogaster, the homologue of NRXN1, called Nrx-1, regulates energy metabolism and nutrient homeostasis. First, we show that Nrx-1-null flies exhibit decreased resistance to nutrient deprivation and heat stress compared to controls. Additionally, Nrx-1 mutants exhibit a significantly altered metabolic profile characterized by decreased lipid and carbohydrate stores. Nrx-1-null Drosophila also exhibit diminished levels of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+), an important coenzyme in major energy metabolism pathways. Moreover, loss of Nrx-1 resulted in striking abnormalities in mitochondrial morphology in the flight muscle of Nrx-1-null Drosophila and impaired flight ability in these flies. Further, following a mechanical shock Nrx-1-null flies exhibited seizure-like activity, a phenotype previously linked to defects in mitochondrial metabolism and a common symptom of patients with NRXN1 deletions. The current studies indicate a novel role for NRXN1 in the regulation of energy metabolism and uncover a clinically relevant seizure phenotype in Drosophila lacking Nrx-1.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kyra A Levy
- Department of Genetics, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.,Neuroscience Graduate Group, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.,Autism Spectrum Program of Excellence, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
| | - Eliana D Weisz
- Department of Genetics, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.,Autism Spectrum Program of Excellence, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
| | - Thomas A Jongens
- Department of Genetics, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.,Autism Spectrum Program of Excellence, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
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31
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Nisar S, Bhat AA, Masoodi T, Hashem S, Akhtar S, Ali TA, Amjad S, Chawla S, Bagga P, Frenneaux MP, Reddy R, Fakhro K, Haris M. Genetics of glutamate and its receptors in autism spectrum disorder. Mol Psychiatry 2022; 27:2380-2392. [PMID: 35296811 PMCID: PMC9135628 DOI: 10.1038/s41380-022-01506-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/18/2021] [Revised: 02/11/2022] [Accepted: 02/22/2022] [Indexed: 12/11/2022]
Abstract
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental impairment characterized by deficits in social interaction skills, impaired communication, and repetitive and restricted behaviors that are thought to be due to altered neurotransmission processes. The amino acid glutamate is an essential excitatory neurotransmitter in the human brain that regulates cognitive functions such as learning and memory, which are usually impaired in ASD. Over the last several years, increasing evidence from genetics, neuroimaging, protein expression, and animal model studies supporting the notion of altered glutamate metabolism has heightened the interest in evaluating glutamatergic dysfunction in ASD. Numerous pharmacological, behavioral, and imaging studies have demonstrated the imbalance in excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitters, thus revealing the involvement of the glutamatergic system in ASD pathology. Here, we review the effects of genetic alterations on glutamate and its receptors in ASD and the role of non-invasive imaging modalities in detecting these changes. We also highlight the potential therapeutic targets associated with impaired glutamatergic pathways.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sabah Nisar
- Laboratory of Molecular and Metabolic Imaging, Sidra Medicine, P.O. Box 26999, Doha, Qatar
| | - Ajaz A Bhat
- Laboratory of Molecular and Metabolic Imaging, Sidra Medicine, P.O. Box 26999, Doha, Qatar
| | - Tariq Masoodi
- Laboratory of Molecular and Metabolic Imaging, Sidra Medicine, P.O. Box 26999, Doha, Qatar
| | - Sheema Hashem
- Laboratory of Molecular and Metabolic Imaging, Sidra Medicine, P.O. Box 26999, Doha, Qatar
| | - Sabah Akhtar
- Laboratory of Molecular and Metabolic Imaging, Sidra Medicine, P.O. Box 26999, Doha, Qatar
| | - Tayyiba Akbar Ali
- Laboratory of Molecular and Metabolic Imaging, Sidra Medicine, P.O. Box 26999, Doha, Qatar
| | - Sara Amjad
- Shibli National College, Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh, 276001, India
| | - Sanjeev Chawla
- Department of Radiology, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA
| | - Puneet Bagga
- Department of Diagnostic Imaging, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, 38105, USA
| | - Michael P Frenneaux
- Academic Health System, Hamad Medical Corporation, P.O. Box 3050, Doha, Qatar
| | - Ravinder Reddy
- Center for Advanced Metabolic Imaging in Precision Medicine, Department of Radiology, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA
| | - Khalid Fakhro
- Department of Human Genetics, Sidra Medicine, P.O. Box 26999, Doha, Qatar
- Department of Genetic Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, P.O. Box 24144, Doha, Qatar
| | - Mohammad Haris
- Laboratory of Molecular and Metabolic Imaging, Sidra Medicine, P.O. Box 26999, Doha, Qatar.
- Center for Advanced Metabolic Imaging in Precision Medicine, Department of Radiology, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA.
- Laboratory of Animal Research, Qatar University, P.O. Box 2713, Doha, Qatar.
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32
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Abstract
Neurexin-3 is primarily localized in the presynaptic membrane and forms complexes with various ligands located in the postsynaptic membrane. Neurexin-3 has important roles in synapse development and synapse functions. Neurexin-3 mediates excitatory presynaptic differentiation by interacting with leucine-rich-repeat transmembrane neuronal proteins. Meanwhile, neurexin-3 modulates the expression of presynaptic α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazole propionic acid receptors and γ-aminobutyric acid A receptors by interacting with neuroligins at excitatory and inhibitory synapses. Numerous studies have documented the potential contribution of neurexin-3 to neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease, addiction behaviors, and other diseases, which raises hopes that understanding the mechanisms of neurexin-3 may hold the key to developing new strategies for related illnesses. This review comprehensively covers the literature to provide current knowledge of the structure, function, and clinical role of neurexin-3.
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33
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Lin J, Zhang K, Cao X, Zhao Y, Ullah Khan N, Liu X, Tang X, Chen M, Zhang H, Shen L. iTRAQ-Based Proteomics Analysis of Rat Cerebral Cortex Exposed to Valproic Acid before Delivery. ACS Chem Neurosci 2022; 13:648-663. [PMID: 35138800 DOI: 10.1021/acschemneuro.1c00800] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurological and developmental disorder characterized by social and communication difficulties. Valproic acid (VPA) injection during pregnancy elicits autism-like behavior in the offspring, making it a classic animal model of ASD. However, the mechanisms involved have not yet been determined. In this study, we used iTRAQ (isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantification) proteomics analysis of the cerebral cortex of a VPA rat model (VPA group) and controls (CON group). The results showed that 79 differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) were identified between the VPA group and the CON group. Based on bioinformatics analysis, the DEPs were mainly enriched at synapses, especially glutamatergic synapses and GABAergic synapses. Some DEPs were involved in energy metabolism, thyroid hormone synthesis pathway, and Na+-K+-ATPase. Cytoskeleton and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress-related proteins were also involved. Some DEPs matched either the ASD gene database or previous reports on cerebral cortical transcriptome studies in VPA rat models. Dysregulation of these DEPs in the cerebral cortex of VPA rats may be responsible for autism-like behavior in rats. We also found that some DEPs were associated with neuropsychiatric disorders, implying that these diseases share common signaling pathways and mechanisms. Moreover, increased expression of DEPs was associated with energy metabolism in the cerebral cortex of VPA rats, implying that ASD may be a distinct type of mitochondrial dysfunction that requires further investigation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jing Lin
- College of Life Science and Oceanography, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518071, P. R. China
- Shenzhen-Hong Kong Institute of Brain Science-Shenzhen Fundamental Research Institutions, Shenzhen 518055, P. R. China
| | - Kaoyuan Zhang
- College of Life Science and Oceanography, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518071, P. R. China
| | - Xueshan Cao
- College of Life Science and Oceanography, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518071, P. R. China
| | - Yuxi Zhao
- College of Life Science and Oceanography, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518071, P. R. China
| | - Naseer Ullah Khan
- College of Life Science and Oceanography, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518071, P. R. China
| | - Xukun Liu
- College of Life Science and Oceanography, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518071, P. R. China
| | - Xiaoxiao Tang
- College of Life Science and Oceanography, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518071, P. R. China
- Brain Disease and Big Data Research Institute, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518071, P. R. China
| | - Margy Chen
- Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia 30322, United States
| | - Huajie Zhang
- College of Life Science and Oceanography, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518071, P. R. China
- Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Marine Biotechnology and Ecology, Shenzhen 518071, P. R. China
| | - Liming Shen
- College of Life Science and Oceanography, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518071, P. R. China
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34
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Denier N, Steinberg G, van Elst LT, Bracht T. The role of head circumference and cerebral volumes to phenotype male adults with autism spectrum disorder. Brain Behav 2022; 12:e2460. [PMID: 35112511 PMCID: PMC8933748 DOI: 10.1002/brb3.2460] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/12/2021] [Revised: 10/18/2021] [Accepted: 11/26/2021] [Indexed: 11/11/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has been repeatedly associated with enlargements of head circumference in children with ASD. However, it is unclear if these enlargements persist into adulthood. This is the first study to investigate head circumference in a large sample of adults with ASD. METHODS We apply a fully automated magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) based measurement approach to compute head circumference by combining 3D and 2D image processing. Head circumference was compared between male adults with ASD (n = 120) and healthy male controls (n = 136), from the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange (ABIDE) database. To explain which brain alterations drive our results, secondary analyses were performed for 10 additional morphological brain metrics. RESULTS ASD subjects showed an increase in head circumference (p = .0018). In addition, ASD patients had increased ventricular surface area (SA) (p = .0013). Intracranial volume, subarachnoidal cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) volume, and gray matter volume explained 50% of head circumference variance. Using a linear support vector machine, we gained an ASD classification accuracy of 73% (sensitivity 92%, specificity 68%) using head circumference and brain-morphological metrics as input features. Head circumference, ventricular SA, ventricular CSF volume, and ventricular asymmetry index contributed to 85% of feature weighting relevant for classification. CONCLUSION Our results suggest that head circumference increases in males with ASD persist into adulthood. Results may be driven by morphological alterations of ventricular CSF. The presented approach for an automated head circumference measurement allows for the retrospective investigation of large MRI datasets in neuropsychiatric disorders.
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Affiliation(s)
- Niklaus Denier
- Translational Research Center, University Hospital of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
| | - Gerrit Steinberg
- Translational Research Center, University Hospital of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
| | - Ludger Tebartz van Elst
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Faculty of Medicine, Medical Center-University of Freiburg, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany
| | - Tobias Bracht
- Translational Research Center, University Hospital of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
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Mpoulimari I, Zintzaras E. Identification of Chromosomal Regions Linked to Autism-Spectrum Disorders: A Meta-Analysis of Genome-Wide Linkage Scans. Genet Test Mol Biomarkers 2022; 26:59-69. [PMID: 35225680 DOI: 10.1089/gtmb.2021.0236] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/01/2023] Open
Abstract
Background: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a clinically and genetically heterogeneous group of pervasive neurodevelopmental disorders with a strong hereditary component. Although, genome-wide linkage scans (GWLS) and association studies (GWAS) have previously identified hundreds of ASD risk gene loci, the results remain inconclusive. Method: We performed a heterogeneity-based genome search meta-analysis (HEGESMA) of 15 genome scans of autism and ASD. Results: For strictly defined autism, data were analyzed across six separate genome scans. Region 7q22-q34 reached statistical significance in both weighted and unweighted analyses, with evidence of significantly low between-scan heterogeneity. For ASDs (data from 12 separate scans), chromosomal regions 5p15.33-5p15.1 and 15q22.32-15q26.1 reached significance in both weighted and unweighted analyses but did not reach significance for either low or high heterogeneity. Region 1q23.2-1q31.1 was significant in unweighted analyses with low between-scan heterogeneity. Finally, region 8p21.1-8q13.2 reached significant linkage peak in all our meta-analyses. When we combined all available genome scans (15), the same results were produced. Conclusions: This meta-analysis suggests that these regions should be further investigated for autism susceptibility genes, with the caveat that autism spectrum disorders have different linkage signals across genome scans, possibly because of the high genetic heterogeneity of the disease.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ioanna Mpoulimari
- Department of Biomathematics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Thessaly, Larissa, Greece
| | - Elias Zintzaras
- Department of Biomathematics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Thessaly, Larissa, Greece.,The Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies, Tufts Medical Center, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
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Sun ML, Yue FG, Zhang XY, Jiang YT, Li LL, Zhang HG, Liu RZ. Molecular cytogenetic characterization of 2q deletion and Xq duplication associated with nasal bone dysplasia in prenatal diagnosis: A case report and literature review. Taiwan J Obstet Gynecol 2022; 61:163-169. [PMID: 35181032 DOI: 10.1016/j.tjog.2021.11.029] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 07/27/2021] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
OBJECTIVE We report a prenatal case of male fetus with a 2q13 deletion and an Xq27.3q28 duplication, presenting nasal bone dysplasia by ultrasound examination. And we compare the similarities of clinical features of cases consisting of similar 2q deletion and Xq duplication. CASE REPORT A 30-year-old woman was referred for prenatal diagnosis and genetic counseling at 24 weeks of gestation. Prenatal ultrasound showed nasal bone dysplasia of the fetus. Amniocentesis revealed the karyotype of the fetus as 46, XY and the results of chromosomal microarray analysis was arr[GRCh37] 2q13(110467258-111370025)x1, arr[GRCh37]Xq27.3q28(144050780-149748782)x2. The parents both have normal karyotypes. The couple chose to continue the pregnancy and finally delivered a male infant at 39 weeks of gestation. His weight was 2850 g and length was 50 cm. Physical examination of the newborn revealed no apparent anomalies. Until the boy was one year old, there was no abnormalities in his growth and development. The long-term follow-up till adulthood for the healthy infant is necessary. CONCLUSION The development of CMA plays a critical role in prenatal diagnosis and genetic counseling for unidentified chromosomal anomalies. More clinical information and further studies of patients with these anomalies will identify the pathogenicity of the involving genes and improve the understanding of the phenotype-genotype correlation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mei-Ling Sun
- Center for Reproductive Medicine and Center for Prenatal Diagnosis, First Hospital, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, PR China; Jilin Engineering Research Center for Reproductive Medicine and Genetics, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, PR China
| | - Fa-Gui Yue
- Center for Reproductive Medicine and Center for Prenatal Diagnosis, First Hospital, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, PR China; Jilin Engineering Research Center for Reproductive Medicine and Genetics, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, PR China
| | - Xin-Yue Zhang
- Center for Reproductive Medicine and Center for Prenatal Diagnosis, First Hospital, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, PR China; Jilin Engineering Research Center for Reproductive Medicine and Genetics, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, PR China
| | - Yu-Ting Jiang
- Center for Reproductive Medicine and Center for Prenatal Diagnosis, First Hospital, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, PR China; Jilin Engineering Research Center for Reproductive Medicine and Genetics, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, PR China
| | - Lei-Lei Li
- Center for Reproductive Medicine and Center for Prenatal Diagnosis, First Hospital, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, PR China; Jilin Engineering Research Center for Reproductive Medicine and Genetics, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, PR China
| | - Hong-Guo Zhang
- Center for Reproductive Medicine and Center for Prenatal Diagnosis, First Hospital, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, PR China; Jilin Engineering Research Center for Reproductive Medicine and Genetics, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, PR China
| | - Rui-Zhi Liu
- Center for Reproductive Medicine and Center for Prenatal Diagnosis, First Hospital, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, PR China; Jilin Engineering Research Center for Reproductive Medicine and Genetics, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, PR China.
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Ji Y, Chen R, Wang Q, Wei Q, Tao R, Li B. Leveraging Gene-Level Prediction as Informative Covariate in Hypothesis Weighting Improves Power for Rare Variant Association Studies. Genes (Basel) 2022; 13:381. [PMID: 35205424 PMCID: PMC8872452 DOI: 10.3390/genes13020381] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/13/2021] [Revised: 01/31/2022] [Accepted: 02/09/2022] [Indexed: 02/05/2023] Open
Abstract
Gene-based rare variant association studies (RVASs) have low power due to the infrequency of rare variants and the large multiple testing burden. To correct for multiple testing, traditional false discovery rate (FDR) procedures which depend solely on P-values are often used. Recently, Independent Hypothesis Weighting (IHW) was developed to improve the detection power while maintaining FDR control by leveraging prior information for each hypothesis. Here, we present a framework to increase power of gene-based RVASs by incorporating prior information using IHW. We first build supervised machine learning models to assign each gene a prediction score that measures its disease risk, using the input of multiple biological features, fed with high-confidence risk genes and local background genes selected near GWAS significant loci as the training set. Then we use the prediction scores as covariates to prioritize RVAS results via IHW. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this framework through applications to RVASs in schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder. We found sizeable improvements in the number of significant associations compared to traditional FDR approaches, and independent evidence supporting the relevance of the genes identified by our framework but not traditional FDR, demonstrating the potential of our framework to improve power of gene-based RVASs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ying Ji
- Department of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37232, USA; (Y.J.); (R.C.); (Q.W.); (Q.W.)
- Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37203, USA
| | - Rui Chen
- Department of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37232, USA; (Y.J.); (R.C.); (Q.W.); (Q.W.)
- Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37203, USA
| | - Quan Wang
- Department of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37232, USA; (Y.J.); (R.C.); (Q.W.); (Q.W.)
- Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37203, USA
| | - Qiang Wei
- Department of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37232, USA; (Y.J.); (R.C.); (Q.W.); (Q.W.)
- Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37203, USA
| | - Ran Tao
- Department of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37232, USA; (Y.J.); (R.C.); (Q.W.); (Q.W.)
- Department of Biostatistics, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37203, USA
| | - Bingshan Li
- Department of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37232, USA; (Y.J.); (R.C.); (Q.W.); (Q.W.)
- Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37203, USA
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Thomason EJ, Suárez-Pozos E, Afshari FS, Rosenberg PA, Dupree JL, Fuss B. Deletion of the Sodium-Dependent Glutamate Transporter GLT-1 in Maturing Oligodendrocytes Attenuates Myelination of Callosal Axons During a Postnatal Phase of Central Nervous System Development. Front Cell Neurosci 2022; 16:905299. [PMID: 35722615 PMCID: PMC9203689 DOI: 10.3389/fncel.2022.905299] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/26/2022] [Accepted: 05/16/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The sodium-dependent glutamate transporter GLT-1 (EAAT2, SLC1A2) has been well-described as an important regulator of extracellular glutamate homeostasis in the central nervous system (CNS), a function that is performed mainly through its presence on astrocytes. There is, however, increasing evidence for the expression of GLT-1 in CNS cells other than astrocytes and in functional roles that are mediated by mechanisms downstream of glutamate uptake. In this context, GLT-1 expression has been reported for both neurons and oligodendrocytes (OLGs), and neuronal presynaptic presence of GLT-1 has been implicated in the regulation of glutamate uptake, gene expression, and mitochondrial function. Much less is currently known about the functional roles of GLT-1 expressed by OLGs. The data presented here provide first evidence that GLT-1 expressed by maturing OLGs contributes to the modulation of developmental myelination in the CNS. More specifically, using inducible and conditional knockout mice in which GLT-1 was deleted in maturing OLGs during a peak period of myelination (between 2 and 4 weeks of age) revealed hypomyelinated characteristics in the corpus callosum of preferentially male mice. These characteristics included reduced percentages of smaller diameter myelinated axons and reduced myelin thickness. Interestingly, this myelination phenotype was not found to be associated with major changes in myelin gene expression. Taken together, the data presented here demonstrate that GLT-1 expressed by maturing OLGs is involved in the modulation of the morphological aspects associated with CNS myelination in at least the corpus callosum and during a developmental window that appears of particular vulnerability in males compared to females.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elizabeth J Thomason
- Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, Richmond, VA, United States
| | - Edna Suárez-Pozos
- Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, Richmond, VA, United States
| | - Fatemah S Afshari
- Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, Richmond, VA, United States
| | - Paul A Rosenberg
- Department of Neurology and the F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, United States
| | - Jeffrey L Dupree
- Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, Richmond, VA, United States
| | - Babette Fuss
- Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, Richmond, VA, United States
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Zhang Y, Liu X, Gao H, Cui W, Zhang B, Zhao Y. Molecular and phenotypic characteristics of 15q24 microdeletion in pediatric patients with developmental disorders. Mol Cytogenet 2021; 14:57. [PMID: 34922566 PMCID: PMC8684056 DOI: 10.1186/s13039-021-00574-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/23/2021] [Accepted: 11/03/2021] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Chromosome 15q24 microdeletion is a rare genetic disorder characterized by development delay, facial dysmorphism, congenital malformations, and occasional autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In this study, we identified five cases of 15q24 microdeletion using multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification (MLPA) technology in a cohort of patients with developmental delay and/or intellectual disability. Two of these five cases had deletions that overlapped with the previously defined 1.1 Mb region observed in most reported cases. Two cases had smaller deletions (< 0.57 Mb) in the 15q24.1 low copy repeat (LCR) B-C region. They presented significant neurobehavioral features, suggesting that this smaller interval is critical for core phenotypes of 15q24 microdeletion syndrome. One case had minimal homozygous deletion of less than 0.11 Mb in the 15q24.1 LCR B-C region, which contained CYP1A1 (cytochrome P450 family 1 subfamily A member 1) and EDC3 (enhancer of mRNA decapping 3) genes, resulting in poor immunity, severe laryngeal stridor, and lower limbs swelling. This study provides additional evidence of 15q24 microdeletion syndrome with genetic and clinical findings. The results will be of significance to pediatricians in their daily practice.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yuanyuan Zhang
- Department of Clinical Genetics, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, 110004, Liaoning, China
| | - Xiaoliang Liu
- Department of Clinical Genetics, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, 110004, Liaoning, China
| | - Haiming Gao
- Department of Clinical Genetics, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, 110004, Liaoning, China
| | - Wanting Cui
- Department of Clinical Genetics, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, 110004, Liaoning, China
| | - Bijun Zhang
- Department of Clinical Genetics, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, 110004, Liaoning, China
| | - Yanyan Zhao
- Department of Clinical Genetics, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, 110004, Liaoning, China.
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Tanaka K. Astroglia and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. ADVANCES IN NEUROBIOLOGY 2021; 26:139-149. [PMID: 34888834 DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-77375-5_7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) has a prevalence rate of 1-3% in the general population and has been ranked as one of the top ten leading causes of illness-related disability (American Psychiatric Association 2013; Kessler et al. 2005). OCD is characterized by persistent intrusive thoughts (obsessions) and repetitive behaviors (compulsions) (Leckman et al. 1997). There are various OCD-related disorders, including Tourette syndrome (TS), grooming disorders (e.g., skin-picking, trichotillomania), and autism spectrum disorders (ASD) that share considerable overlapping features with OCD (Browne et al. 2014). Although the neurobiological basis of OCD still remains obscure, neuroimaging studies in patients with OCD and OCD-related disorders have consistently identified hyperactivity in orbitofrontal cortex and striatum (Cerliani et al. 2015; Hou et al. 2014; Jung et al. 2017; Neuner et al. 2014). However, the cellular and synaptic abnormalities underlying this hyperactivity are unclear. The most prominent theory regarding the underlying mechanisms of OCD and OCD-related disorders is an increased excitation to inhibition (E/I) ratio due to increased glutamatergic excitation or reduced GABAergic inhibition (Albin and Mink 2006; Rubenstein and Merzenich 2003; Wu et al. 2012). A proper E/I ratio is achieved by factors expressed in neuron and glia. In astrocytes, both the glutamate transporter GLT1 and GABA transporter GAT-3 are critical for regulating the E/I balance (Aida et al. 2015; Aizawa et al. 2020; Boddum et al. 2016; Cui et al. 2014; Kersanté et al. 2013; Kiryk et al. 2008; Matos et al. 2018; Scimemi 2014; Sugimoto et al. 2018; Sugiyama et al. 2017; Tanaka et al. 1997; Zhao et al. 2018). Although astrocyte dysfunction has not been directly explored in OCD patients, several animal studies have found that astrocytes are involved in the pathophysiology of OCD. In this chapter, I highlight recent studies in which astrocyte dysfunction contributed to E/I imbalance, leading to pathological repetitive behaviors shared between patients with OCD, TS, and ASD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kohichi Tanaka
- Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Department of Molecular Neuroscience, Medical Research Institute, Tokyo, Japan.
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Lombardo MV, Busuoli EM, Schreibman L, Stahmer AC, Pramparo T, Landi I, Mandelli V, Bertelsen N, Barnes CC, Gazestani V, Lopez L, Bacon EC, Courchesne E, Pierce K. Pre-treatment clinical and gene expression patterns predict developmental change in early intervention in autism. Mol Psychiatry 2021; 26:7641-7651. [PMID: 34341515 PMCID: PMC8872998 DOI: 10.1038/s41380-021-01239-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/08/2021] [Revised: 06/29/2021] [Accepted: 07/13/2021] [Indexed: 12/12/2022]
Abstract
Early detection and intervention are believed to be key to facilitating better outcomes in children with autism, yet the impact of age at treatment start on the outcome is poorly understood. While clinical traits such as language ability have been shown to predict treatment outcome, whether or not and how information at the genomic level can predict treatment outcome is unknown. Leveraging a cohort of toddlers with autism who all received the same standardized intervention at a very young age and provided a blood sample, here we find that very early treatment engagement (i.e., <24 months) leads to greater gains while controlling for time in treatment. Pre-treatment clinical behavioral measures predict 21% of the variance in the rate of skill growth during early intervention. Pre-treatment blood leukocyte gene expression patterns also predict the rate of skill growth, accounting for 13% of the variance in treatment slopes. Results indicated that 295 genes can be prioritized as driving this effect. These treatment-relevant genes highly interact at the protein level, are enriched for differentially histone acetylated genes in autism postmortem cortical tissue, and are normatively highly expressed in a variety of subcortical and cortical areas important for social communication and language development. This work suggests that pre-treatment biological and clinical behavioral characteristics are important for predicting developmental change in the context of early intervention and that individualized pre-treatment biology related to histone acetylation may be key.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michael V Lombardo
- Laboratory for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Center for Neuroscience and Cognitive Systems @UniTn, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Rovereto, Italy.
- Department of Psychiatry, Autism Research Centre, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
| | - Elena Maria Busuoli
- Laboratory for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Center for Neuroscience and Cognitive Systems @UniTn, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Rovereto, Italy
- Center for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento, Rovereto, Italy
| | - Laura Schreibman
- Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Aubyn C Stahmer
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of California, Davis, Sacramento, CA, USA
| | - Tiziano Pramparo
- Department of Neurosciences, Autism Center of Excellence, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Isotta Landi
- Laboratory for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Center for Neuroscience and Cognitive Systems @UniTn, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Rovereto, Italy
| | - Veronica Mandelli
- Laboratory for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Center for Neuroscience and Cognitive Systems @UniTn, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Rovereto, Italy
- Center for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento, Rovereto, Italy
| | - Natasha Bertelsen
- Laboratory for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Center for Neuroscience and Cognitive Systems @UniTn, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Rovereto, Italy
- Center for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento, Rovereto, Italy
| | - Cynthia Carter Barnes
- Department of Neurosciences, Autism Center of Excellence, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Vahid Gazestani
- Department of Neurosciences, Autism Center of Excellence, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Linda Lopez
- Department of Neurosciences, Autism Center of Excellence, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Elizabeth C Bacon
- Department of Neurosciences, Autism Center of Excellence, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Eric Courchesne
- Department of Neurosciences, Autism Center of Excellence, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Karen Pierce
- Department of Neurosciences, Autism Center of Excellence, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
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Moniem Ali R, El-Wakeel HA, Al-Saleh DF, Shukri MI, Ansari KMN. Autism spectrum disorder in architecture perspective: a review of the literature and bibliometric assessment of research indexed in Web of Science. F1000Res 2021; 10:1087. [PMID: 35923662 PMCID: PMC9326241 DOI: 10.12688/f1000research.54437.1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 09/09/2021] [Indexed: 09/02/2024] Open
Abstract
Purpose: The primary objective of this research paper was to explore the current state-of-the-art research on autism spectrum disorder from a designer's perspective. An increasing number of scholarly publications in this discipline have urged researcher interest in this topic; however, there is still a lack of quantitative analysis. Therefore, this paper aims to analyze global research output on autism spectrum disorder from a designer's perspective during 1992-2021. Methodology: A bibliometric method was employed to analyze the published literature from 1992-2021. 812 papers were downloaded from the Web of Science core collection for analysis focused on annual growth of literature, prolific authors, authorship pattern, productive organizations, countries, international collaboration, literature trends by keyword analysis, and identifying the funding agencies. Various bibliometrics and scientometrics software were used to analyze the data, namely Bibexcel, Biblioshiny, and VOS viewer. Results: There were 812 research papers published in 405 sources during 1992-2021. 2019 was noted as the most productive year (NP=101), and 2014 received the highest number of citations (TC=6634). Researchers preferred to publish as journal articles (NP=538; TC=24922). The University of Toronto, Canada, was identified as a productive institution with 42 publications and 5358 citations. The USA was the leading producing country with 433 publications, and most of the researchers publish their work in the journal "Scientific Reports" (NP=16). The word "autism" (NP=257) and "architecture" (NP=165) were the most frequently used keywords in autism research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Reham Moniem Ali
- Interior Design Department, College of Design, Imam Abdulrahman bin Faisal University, Saudi Arabia, Eastern Province, PO. 1982, Saudi Arabia
| | - Hala A. El-Wakeel
- Interior Design Department, College of Design, Imam Abdulrahman bin Faisal University, Saudi Arabia, Eastern Province, PO. 1982, Saudi Arabia
| | - Deema Faisal Al-Saleh
- Interior Design Department, College of Design, Imam Abdulrahman bin Faisal University, Saudi Arabia, Eastern Province, PO. 1982, Saudi Arabia
| | - Mai Ibrahim Shukri
- Interior Design Department, College of Design, Imam Abdulrahman bin Faisal University, Saudi Arabia, Eastern Province, PO. 1982, Saudi Arabia
| | - Khadeeja M N Ansari
- Interior Design Department, College of Design, Imam Abdulrahman bin Faisal University, Saudi Arabia, Eastern Province, PO. 1982, Saudi Arabia
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Moniem Ali R, El-Wakeel HA, Al-Saleh DF, Shukri MI, Ansari KMN. Autism spectrum disorder in architecture perspective: a review of the literature and bibliometric assessment of research indexed in Web of Science. F1000Res 2021; 10:1087. [PMID: 35923662 PMCID: PMC9326241 DOI: 10.12688/f1000research.54437.2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 06/20/2022] [Indexed: 11/20/2022] Open
Abstract
PURPOSE An increasing number of scholarly publications on autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have urged researcher interest in this topic; however, there is still a lack of quantitative analysis. Therefore, this study aims to cover the knowledge gap between the amount of literature published on ASD research on architectural and designers' perspectives compared to the medical and psychological fields. The study has analyzed global research output on ASD from a designer's perspective to recognize this gap related to designing the physical environment. Methodology: The bibliometric method was employed to analyze the published literature from 1992-to 2021. 812 papers were downloaded from the Web of Science for analysis based on annual growth of literature, prolific authors, authorship pattern, organizations, countries, international collaboration, and subject development by keywords and thematic map analyses. Various bibliometric and scientometric software was used to analyze the data, namely Bibexcel, Biblioshiny, and VOS viewer. RESULTS The812 research papers were published in 405 sources. 2019 appeared as a productive year (NP=101), and 2014 received the highest number of citations (TC=6634). Researchers preferred to publish as journal articles (NP=538; TC=24922). The University of Toronto, Canada, was identified as a productive institution with 42 publications and 5358 citations. The USA was the leading producing country with 433 publications, and most of the researchers published in the journal " Scientific Reports" (NP=16). The word autism (NP=257) and architecture (NP=165) were more frequently used keywords. CONCLUSION The study identified a massive gap in the development of literature in ASD for architecture design and built environment perspective, the most important and trending keywords are missing, and the analyses also showed a lack of subject development. The authors have suggested areas and keywords for further research to fulfill the gap in the future.
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Affiliation(s)
- Reham Moniem Ali
- Interior Design Department, College of Design, Imam Abdulrahman bin Faisal University, Saudi Arabia, Eastern Province, PO. 1982, Saudi Arabia
| | - Hala A. El-Wakeel
- Interior Design Department, College of Design, Imam Abdulrahman bin Faisal University, Saudi Arabia, Eastern Province, PO. 1982, Saudi Arabia
| | - Deema Faisal Al-Saleh
- Interior Design Department, College of Design, Imam Abdulrahman bin Faisal University, Saudi Arabia, Eastern Province, PO. 1982, Saudi Arabia
| | - Mai Ibrahim Shukri
- Interior Design Department, College of Design, Imam Abdulrahman bin Faisal University, Saudi Arabia, Eastern Province, PO. 1982, Saudi Arabia
| | - Khadeeja M N Ansari
- Interior Design Department, College of Design, Imam Abdulrahman bin Faisal University, Saudi Arabia, Eastern Province, PO. 1982, Saudi Arabia
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Sánchez-Hidalgo AC, Arias-Aragón F, Romero-Barragán MT, Martín-Cuevas C, Delgado-García JM, Martinez-Mir A, Scholl FG. Selective expression of the neurexin substrate for presenilin in the adult forebrain causes deficits in associative memory and presynaptic plasticity. Exp Neurol 2021; 347:113896. [PMID: 34662541 DOI: 10.1016/j.expneurol.2021.113896] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/02/2021] [Revised: 09/27/2021] [Accepted: 10/10/2021] [Indexed: 01/25/2023]
Abstract
Presenilins (PS) form the active subunit of the gamma-secretase complex, which mediates the proteolytic clearance of a broad variety of type-I plasma membrane proteins. Loss-of-function mutations in PSEN1/2 genes are the leading cause of familial Alzheimer's disease (fAD). However, the PS/gamma-secretase substrates relevant for the neuronal deficits associated with a loss of PS function are not completely known. The members of the neurexin (Nrxn) family of presynaptic plasma membrane proteins are candidates to mediate aspects of the synaptic and memory deficits associated with a loss of PS function. Previous work has shown that fAD-linked PS mutants or inactivation of PS by genetic and pharmacological approaches failed to clear Nrxn C-terminal fragments (NrxnCTF), leading to its abnormal accumulation at presynaptic terminals. Here, we generated transgenic mice that selectively recreate the presynaptic accumulation of NrxnCTF in adult forebrain neurons, leaving unaltered the function of PS/gamma-secretase complex towards other substrates. Behavioral characterization identified selective impairments in NrxnCTF mice, including decreased fear-conditioning memory. Electrophysiological recordings in medial prefrontal cortex-basolateral amygdala (mPFC-BLA) of behaving mice showed normal synaptic transmission and uncovered specific defects in synaptic facilitation. These data functionally link the accumulation of NrxnCTF with defects in associative memory and short-term synaptic plasticity, pointing at impaired clearance of NrxnCTF as a new mediator in AD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ana C Sánchez-Hidalgo
- Instituto de Biomedicina de Sevilla (IBiS), Hospital Universitario Virgen del Rocío/CSIC/Universidad de Sevilla, Avda. Manuel Siurot s/n, Sevilla 41013, Spain; Departamento de Fisiología Médica y Biofísica, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Sevilla, Avda. Sánchez Pizjuán, 4, Sevilla 41009, Spain
| | - Francisco Arias-Aragón
- Instituto de Biomedicina de Sevilla (IBiS), Hospital Universitario Virgen del Rocío/CSIC/Universidad de Sevilla, Avda. Manuel Siurot s/n, Sevilla 41013, Spain; Departamento de Fisiología Médica y Biofísica, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Sevilla, Avda. Sánchez Pizjuán, 4, Sevilla 41009, Spain
| | | | - Celia Martín-Cuevas
- Instituto de Biomedicina de Sevilla (IBiS), Hospital Universitario Virgen del Rocío/CSIC/Universidad de Sevilla, Avda. Manuel Siurot s/n, Sevilla 41013, Spain; Departamento de Fisiología Médica y Biofísica, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Sevilla, Avda. Sánchez Pizjuán, 4, Sevilla 41009, Spain
| | | | - Amalia Martinez-Mir
- Instituto de Biomedicina de Sevilla (IBiS), Hospital Universitario Virgen del Rocío/CSIC/Universidad de Sevilla, Avda. Manuel Siurot s/n, Sevilla 41013, Spain
| | - Francisco G Scholl
- Instituto de Biomedicina de Sevilla (IBiS), Hospital Universitario Virgen del Rocío/CSIC/Universidad de Sevilla, Avda. Manuel Siurot s/n, Sevilla 41013, Spain; Departamento de Fisiología Médica y Biofísica, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Sevilla, Avda. Sánchez Pizjuán, 4, Sevilla 41009, Spain.
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45
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Motz CT, Kabat V, Saxena T, Bellamkonda RV, Zhu C. Neuromechanobiology: An Expanding Field Driven by the Force of Greater Focus. Adv Healthc Mater 2021; 10:e2100102. [PMID: 34342167 PMCID: PMC8497434 DOI: 10.1002/adhm.202100102] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/17/2021] [Revised: 07/06/2021] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Abstract
The brain processes information by transmitting signals through highly connected and dynamic networks of neurons. Neurons use specific cellular structures, including axons, dendrites and synapses, and specific molecules, including cell adhesion molecules, ion channels and chemical receptors to form, maintain and communicate among cells in the networks. These cellular and molecular processes take place in environments rich of mechanical cues, thus offering ample opportunities for mechanical regulation of neural development and function. Recent studies have suggested the importance of mechanical cues and their potential regulatory roles in the development and maintenance of these neuronal structures. Also suggested are the importance of mechanical cues and their potential regulatory roles in the interaction and function of molecules mediating the interneuronal communications. In this review, the current understanding is integrated and promising future directions of neuromechanobiology are suggested at the cellular and molecular levels. Several neuronal processes where mechanics likely plays a role are examined and how forces affect ligand binding, conformational change, and signal induction of molecules key to these neuronal processes are indicated, especially at the synapse. The disease relevance of neuromechanobiology as well as therapies and engineering solutions to neurological disorders stemmed from this emergent field of study are also discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cara T Motz
- Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332-0363, USA
- Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332-0363, USA
| | - Victoria Kabat
- Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332-0363, USA
| | - Tarun Saxena
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC, 27709, USA
| | - Ravi V Bellamkonda
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Pratt School of Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC, 27708, USA
| | - Cheng Zhu
- Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332-0363, USA
- Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332-0363, USA
- George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332-0363, USA
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46
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Parcerisas A, Ortega-Gascó A, Pujadas L, Soriano E. The Hidden Side of NCAM Family: NCAM2, a Key Cytoskeleton Organization Molecule Regulating Multiple Neural Functions. Int J Mol Sci 2021; 22:10021. [PMID: 34576185 PMCID: PMC8471948 DOI: 10.3390/ijms221810021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/06/2021] [Revised: 09/12/2021] [Accepted: 09/14/2021] [Indexed: 02/07/2023] Open
Abstract
Although it has been over 20 years since Neural Cell Adhesion Molecule 2 (NCAM2) was identified as the second member of the NCAM family with a high expression in the nervous system, the knowledge of NCAM2 is still eclipsed by NCAM1. The first studies with NCAM2 focused on the olfactory bulb, where this protein has a key role in axonal projection and axonal/dendritic compartmentalization. In contrast to NCAM1, NCAM2's functions and partners in the brain during development and adulthood have remained largely unknown until not long ago. Recent studies have revealed the importance of NCAM2 in nervous system development. NCAM2 governs neuronal morphogenesis and axodendritic architecture, and controls important neuron-specific processes such as neuronal differentiation, synaptogenesis and memory formation. In the adult brain, NCAM2 is highly expressed in dendritic spines, and it regulates synaptic plasticity and learning processes. NCAM2's functions are related to its ability to adapt to the external inputs of the cell and to modify the cytoskeleton accordingly. Different studies show that NCAM2 interacts with proteins involved in cytoskeleton stability and proteins that regulate calcium influx, which could also modify the cytoskeleton. In this review, we examine the evidence that points to NCAM2 as a crucial cytoskeleton regulation protein during brain development and adulthood. This key function of NCAM2 may offer promising new therapeutic approaches for the treatment of neurodevelopmental diseases and neurodegenerative disorders.
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Affiliation(s)
- Antoni Parcerisas
- Department of Cell Biology, Physiology and Immunology, Institute of Neurosciences, University of Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain; (A.O.-G.); (L.P.)
- Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red Sobre Enfermedades Neurodegenerativas (CIBERNED), 28031 Madrid, Spain
- Department of Basic Sciences, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, 08195 Sant Cugat del Vallès, Spain
| | - Alba Ortega-Gascó
- Department of Cell Biology, Physiology and Immunology, Institute of Neurosciences, University of Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain; (A.O.-G.); (L.P.)
- Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red Sobre Enfermedades Neurodegenerativas (CIBERNED), 28031 Madrid, Spain
| | - Lluís Pujadas
- Department of Cell Biology, Physiology and Immunology, Institute of Neurosciences, University of Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain; (A.O.-G.); (L.P.)
- Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red Sobre Enfermedades Neurodegenerativas (CIBERNED), 28031 Madrid, Spain
| | - Eduardo Soriano
- Department of Cell Biology, Physiology and Immunology, Institute of Neurosciences, University of Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain; (A.O.-G.); (L.P.)
- Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red Sobre Enfermedades Neurodegenerativas (CIBERNED), 28031 Madrid, Spain
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47
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Lopatkina ME, Ivanova SA, Lebedev IN. Estimation of the Prevalence and Parental Origin of Chromosomal Microdeletions and Microduplications Affecting the CNTN6 Gene in Patients with Neurodevelopmental Disorders and Healthy Individuals. RUSS J GENET+ 2021. [DOI: 10.1134/s1022795421070103] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
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48
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Crutel V, Lambert E, Penelaud PF, Albarrán Severo C, Fuentes J, Rosier A, Hervás A, Marret S, Oliveira G, Parellada M, Kyaga S, Gouttefangeas S, Bertrand M, Ravel D, Falissard B. Bumetanide Oral Liquid Formulation for the Treatment of Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Design of Two Phase III Studies (SIGN Trials). J Autism Dev Disord 2021; 51:2959-2972. [PMID: 33151500 PMCID: PMC8254707 DOI: 10.1007/s10803-020-04709-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/27/2022]
Abstract
There are currently no approved pharmacological treatments to improve social reciprocity and limit repetitive and rigid behaviors in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We describe the design of two Phase III studies evaluating the efficacy/safety of bumetanide oral liquid formulation in ASD. These are international, multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies in children and adolescents with ASD aged 7 to 17 years (n = 200; study 1), or younger children with ASD aged 2 to 6 years (n = 200; study 2). The primary endpoint of each is change in Childhood Autism Rating Scale 2 total raw score after 6 months. These studies could contribute to the first pharmacological treatment to improve social reciprocity and limit repetitive and rigid behaviors in children and adolescents with ASD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Véronique Crutel
- Neuro Immuno-Inflammation Therapeutic Area, Institut de Recherches Internationales Servier, Suresnes, France
| | - Estelle Lambert
- Neuro Immuno-Inflammation Therapeutic Area, Institut de Recherches Internationales Servier, Suresnes, France
| | - Pierre-François Penelaud
- Neuro Immuno-Inflammation Therapeutic Area, Institut de Recherches Internationales Servier, Suresnes, France
| | - Cristina Albarrán Severo
- Neuro Immuno-Inflammation Therapeutic Area, Institut de Recherches Internationales Servier, Suresnes, France
| | - Joaquin Fuentes
- Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Service, Policlínica Gipuzkoa & GAUTENA Autism Society, San Sebastián, Spain
| | - Antoine Rosier
- Department of Neonatal Pediatrics, CHU de Rouen and CHU Le Rouvray, Sotteville les Rouen, France
| | - Amaia Hervás
- Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, Hospital Universitari Mútua de Terrassa, and Global Institute of Neurodevelopment Integrated Care (IGAIN), Barcelona, Spain
| | - Stéphane Marret
- Department of Neonatal Pediatrics, Intensive Care, and Neuropediatrics, Rouen University Hospital, Rouen, France
- INSERM U 1245 team 4 Neovasc, School of Medicine, Normandy University, Rouen, France
| | - Guiomar Oliveira
- Neurodevelopmental and Autism Unit from Child Developmental Center and Centro de Investigação e Formação Clínica, Hospital Pediátrico, Centro Hospitalar e Universitário de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
- Faculty of Medicine, University Clinic of Pediatrics, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
| | - Mara Parellada
- Servicio de Psiquiatría del Niño y del Adolescente Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón, CIBERSAM, IiSGM, Ibiza 43, Madrid, Spain
| | - Simon Kyaga
- Global Medical and Patient Affairs, Servier, 35 rue de Verdun, 92284, Suresnes cedex, Suresnes, France.
| | - Sylvie Gouttefangeas
- Neuro Immuno-Inflammation Therapeutic Area, Institut de Recherches Internationales Servier, Suresnes, France
| | - Marianne Bertrand
- Neuro Immuno-Inflammation Therapeutic Area, Institut de Recherches Internationales Servier, Suresnes, France
| | | | - Bruno Falissard
- University Paris-Sud, Univ. Paris-Descartes, AP-HP, INSERM U1178, Paris, France
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49
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Trost B, Loureiro LO, Scherer SW. Discovery of genomic variation across a generation. Hum Mol Genet 2021; 30:R174-R186. [PMID: 34296264 PMCID: PMC8490016 DOI: 10.1093/hmg/ddab209] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/28/2021] [Revised: 07/09/2021] [Accepted: 07/19/2021] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Over the past 30 years (the timespan of a generation), advances in genomics technologies have revealed tremendous and unexpected variation in the human genome and have provided increasingly accurate answers to long-standing questions of how much genetic variation exists in human populations and to what degree the DNA complement changes between parents and offspring. Tracking the characteristics of these inherited and spontaneous (or de novo) variations has been the basis of the study of human genetic disease. From genome-wide microarray and next-generation sequencing scans, we now know that each human genome contains over 3 million single nucleotide variants when compared with the ~ 3 billion base pairs in the human reference genome, along with roughly an order of magnitude more DNA—approximately 30 megabase pairs (Mb)—being ‘structurally variable’, mostly in the form of indels and copy number changes. Additional large-scale variations include balanced inversions (average of 18 Mb) and complex, difficult-to-resolve alterations. Collectively, ~1% of an individual’s genome will differ from the human reference sequence. When comparing across a generation, fewer than 100 new genetic variants are typically detected in the euchromatic portion of a child’s genome. Driven by increasingly higher-resolution and higher-throughput sequencing technologies, newer and more accurate databases of genetic variation (for instance, more comprehensive structural variation data and phasing of combinations of variants along chromosomes) of worldwide populations will emerge to underpin the next era of discovery in human molecular genetics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brett Trost
- The Centre for Applied Genomics and Program in Genetics and Genome Biology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Livia O Loureiro
- The Centre for Applied Genomics and Program in Genetics and Genome Biology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Stephen W Scherer
- The Centre for Applied Genomics and Program in Genetics and Genome Biology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A4, Canada.,McLaughlin Centre and Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 1A8, Canada
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50
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Is NRXN1 Gene Expression an Important Marker of Treatment of Depressive Disorders? A Pilot Study. J Pers Med 2021; 11:jpm11070637. [PMID: 34357104 PMCID: PMC8303668 DOI: 10.3390/jpm11070637] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/31/2021] [Revised: 06/07/2021] [Accepted: 07/01/2021] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Aim: Due to the fact that NRXN1 is associated with neurodevelopmental disorders, the aim of this study was to investigate the role of the NRXN1 gene in the etiology and epigenetics of depression by comparison of NRXN1 mRNA expression and NRXN1 protein level expression in patients suffering from depression versus healthy controls, as well as to search for clinical variables related to expression of the analyzed gene. Material and Methods: A total of 180 people aged 19–64 qualified for the study. The experimental group consisted of 97 people who were psychiatrically hospitalized, diagnosed with recurrent depressive disorders (F33) or who met the diagnostic criteria of a depressive episode (F32) according to ICD-10. The control group included 83 healthy people who volunteered to participate in the study. A sample of peripheral blood was obtained from people who were positively qualified to participate in the study—twice in the experimental group and once in the control group for genetic testing. Sociodemographic variables and data on the course of the disorder were also gathered. Patients were examined on study entry and at the end of the hospitalization with the Hamilton Depression Scale. Obtained data were analyzed statistically. The study was approved by the University’s Bioethics Committee. Results: The gene expression of NRXN1 at both mRNA and protein level significantly differs and it is lower in the experimental group compared to expression in healthy people. The difference in gene expression of NRXN1 at both the mRNA and protein levels between the first and second measurement in the experimental group is also significant. The result demonstrates a higher expression level in the first measurement and lower expression level in the second measurement when reported depression symptoms are less severe. Conclusions: Results concerning expression of NRXN1 may play an important role in further researches about the etiopathogenesis of depressive disorders such as looking for depression biomarkers and identifying evidence which may be relevant to personalize treatment for depression.
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