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Lakatošová S, Janšáková K, Babková J, Repiská G, Belica I, Vidošovičová M, Ostatníková D. The Relationship of Steroid Hormones, Genes Related to Testosterone Metabolism and Behavior in Boys With Autism in Slovakia. Psychiatry Investig 2022; 19:73-84. [PMID: 35042285 PMCID: PMC8898604 DOI: 10.30773/pi.2021.0094] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/16/2021] [Accepted: 07/27/2021] [Indexed: 11/27/2022] Open
Abstract
OBJECTIVE Purpose of the study was to identify the relationship among actual plasmatic levels of steroid hormones and behavioral manifestations in boys with autism and to assess the genetic contribution to these manifestations. METHODS 172 boys with autism under 10 years of age and 135 neurotypical boys attended the study. ADI-R and ADOS-2 were used to evaluate the core symptom severities. Problem behavior was assessed using BPI-01 questionnaire. Levels of testosterone, estradiol, dehydroepiandrosterone, dehydroepiandrosterone-sulfate and sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG) were measured in plasma of autistic boys. Three SNPs (in ESR1, SHBG, SRD5A2 genes) and one STR in AR gene (number of CAG repeats in first exon) were assessed. Hormonal levels and number of CAG repeats in AR gene were used for correlation analysis with behavioral measures. Genotype and allelic frequencies were compared among autistic and neurotypical boys. RESULTS We found negative relationship among SHBG levels and restricted, repetitive behaviors (measured by ADOS-2) and positive relationship among actual testosterone levels and frequency of stereotyped behavior (measured by BPI-01). CONCLUSION Actual levels of SHBG and testosterone are related to severities of restricted and repetitive behaviors in boys with autism. Mechanisms of action of these hormones in brain require further investigation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Silvia Lakatošová
- Comenius University in Bratislava Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Physiology, Bratislava, Slovakia
| | - Katarína Janšáková
- Comenius University in Bratislava Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Physiology, Bratislava, Slovakia
| | - Jaroslava Babková
- Comenius University in Bratislava Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Physiology, Bratislava, Slovakia
| | - Gabriela Repiská
- Comenius University in Bratislava Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Physiology, Bratislava, Slovakia
| | - Ivan Belica
- Comenius University in Bratislava Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Physiology, Bratislava, Slovakia
| | - Mária Vidošovičová
- Comenius University in Bratislava Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Physiology, Bratislava, Slovakia
| | - Daniela Ostatníková
- Comenius University in Bratislava Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Physiology, Bratislava, Slovakia
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Babinská K, Bucová M, Ďurmanová V, Lakatošová S, Jánošíková D, Bakoš J, Hlavatá A, Ostatníková D. Increased plasma levels of the high mobility group box 1 protein (HMGB1) are associated with a higher score of gastrointestinal dysfunction in individuals with autism. Physiol Res 2015; 63:S613-8. [PMID: 25669692 DOI: 10.33549/physiolres.932932] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Autism is a disorder of neural development characterized by impairments in communication, social interaction, restricted interests and repetitive behavior. The etiology of autism is poorly understood, the evidence indicates that inflammation may play a key role. In autism a high prevalence of gastrointestinal disturbances is reported, that are linked to a low-grade chronic inflammation of the intestinal mucosa. High mobility group box 1 protein (HMGB1) is an intranuclear protein that can be passively released from necrotic cells or actively secreted under inflammatory conditions as alarmin or late proinflammatory cytokine. The objective of this study was to measure plasma levels of HMGB1 in individuals with autism and to analyze their association with gastrointestinal symptoms. The study involved 31 subjects with low-functioning autistic disorder aged 2-22 years and 16 healthy controls. Plasma HMGB1 levels were significantly higher in individuals with autism than in controls (13.8+/-11.7 ng/ml vs. 7.90+/-4.0 ng/ml, p<0.02). In subjects with plasma HMGB1 levels higher than 11 ng/ml severe forms of GI disorders were more prevalent (83.3 %) than in subjects with lower levels (38.9 %, p<0.04). Results of the study support the involvement of the systemic low-grade inflammation in the pathomechanisms of autism and its possible association with GI symptoms.
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Affiliation(s)
- K Babinská
- Institute of Physiology, Comenius University in Bratislava, Faculty of Medicine, Bratislava, Slovak Republic.
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Warrier V, Chakrabarti B, Murphy L, Chan A, Craig I, Mallya U, Lakatošová S, Rehnstrom K, Peltonen L, Wheelwright S, Allison C, Fisher SE, Baron-Cohen S. A Pooled Genome-Wide Association Study of Asperger Syndrome. PLoS One 2015; 10:e0131202. [PMID: 26176695 PMCID: PMC4503355 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0131202] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/29/2015] [Accepted: 05/30/2015] [Indexed: 12/27/2022] Open
Abstract
Asperger Syndrome (AS) is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by impairments in social interaction and communication, alongside the presence of unusually repetitive, restricted interests and stereotyped behaviour. Individuals with AS have no delay in cognitive and language development. It is a subset of Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC), which are highly heritable and has a population prevalence of approximately 1%. Few studies have investigated the genetic basis of AS. To address this gap in the literature, we performed a genome-wide pooled DNA association study to identify candidate loci in 612 individuals (294 cases and 318 controls) of Caucasian ancestry, using the Affymetrix GeneChip Human Mapping version 6.0 array. We identified 11 SNPs that had a p-value below 1x10-5. These SNPs were independently genotyped in the same sample. Three of the SNPs (rs1268055, rs7785891 and rs2782448) were nominally significant, though none remained significant after Bonferroni correction. Two of our top three SNPs (rs7785891 and rs2782448) lie in loci previously implicated in ASC. However, investigation of the three SNPs in the ASC genome-wide association dataset from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium indicated that these three SNPs were not significantly associated with ASC. The effect sizes of the variants were modest, indicating that our study was not sufficiently powered to identify causal variants with precision.
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Affiliation(s)
- Varun Warrier
- Autism Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
- * E-mail: (VW); (SB-C)
| | - Bhismadev Chakrabarti
- Autism Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
- School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, Centre for Integrative Neuroscience and Neurodynamics, University of Reading, Reading, United Kingdom
| | - Laura Murphy
- Autism Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Allen Chan
- Autism Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Ian Craig
- MRC Centre for Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry, King’s College London, Institute of Psychiatry, London, United Kingdom
| | - Uma Mallya
- Autism Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Silvia Lakatošová
- Autism Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Karola Rehnstrom
- The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom
| | - Leena Peltonen
- The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom
| | - Sally Wheelwright
- Autism Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Carrie Allison
- Autism Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Simon E. Fisher
- Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, 6500 AH, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Simon Baron-Cohen
- Autism Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
- CLASS Clinic, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust (CPFT), Cambridge, United Kingdom
- * E-mail: (VW); (SB-C)
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Baron-Cohen S, Murphy L, Chakrabarti B, Craig I, Mallya U, Lakatošová S, Rehnstrom K, Peltonen L, Wheelwright S, Allison C, Fisher SE, Warrier V. A genome wide association study of mathematical ability reveals an association at chromosome 3q29, a locus associated with autism and learning difficulties: a preliminary study. PLoS One 2014; 9:e96374. [PMID: 24801482 PMCID: PMC4011843 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0096374] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/03/2014] [Accepted: 04/04/2014] [Indexed: 12/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Mathematical ability is heritable, but few studies have directly investigated its molecular genetic basis. Here we aimed to identify specific genetic contributions to variation in mathematical ability. We carried out a genome wide association scan using pooled DNA in two groups of U.K. samples, based on end of secondary/high school national academic exam achievement: high (n = 419) versus low (n = 183) mathematical ability while controlling for their verbal ability. Significant differences in allele frequencies between these groups were searched for in 906,600 SNPs using the Affymetrix GeneChip Human Mapping version 6.0 array. After meeting a threshold of p<1.5×10−5, 12 SNPs from the pooled association analysis were individually genotyped in 542 of the participants and analyzed to validate the initial associations (lowest p-value 1.14 ×10−6). In this analysis, one of the SNPs (rs789859) showed significant association after Bonferroni correction, and four (rs10873824, rs4144887, rs12130910 rs2809115) were nominally significant (lowest p-value 3.278 × 10−4). Three of the SNPs of interest are located within, or near to, known genes (FAM43A, SFT2D1, C14orf64). The SNP that showed the strongest association, rs789859, is located in a region on chromosome 3q29 that has been previously linked to learning difficulties and autism. rs789859 lies 1.3 kbp downstream of LSG1, and 700 bp upstream of FAM43A, mapping within the potential promoter/regulatory region of the latter. To our knowledge, this is only the second study to investigate the association of genetic variants with mathematical ability, and it highlights a number of interesting markers for future study.
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Affiliation(s)
- Simon Baron-Cohen
- Autism Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom
- CLASS Clinic, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust (CPFT), Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom
- * E-mail: (VW); (SBC)
| | - Laura Murphy
- Autism Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom
| | - Bhismadev Chakrabarti
- Autism Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom
- School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, Centre for Integrative Neuroscience and Neurodynamics, University of Reading, Reading, United Kingdom
| | - Ian Craig
- MRC Centre for Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry, King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, London, United Kingdom
| | - Uma Mallya
- Autism Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom
| | - Silvia Lakatošová
- Autism Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom
| | - Karola Rehnstrom
- The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom
| | - Leena Peltonen
- The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom
| | - Sally Wheelwright
- Autism Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom
| | - Carrie Allison
- Autism Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom
| | - Simon E. Fisher
- Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, 6500 AH Nijmegen, The Netherlands
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Varun Warrier
- Autism Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom
- * E-mail: (VW); (SBC)
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Kubranská A, Lakatošová S, Schmidtová E, Durdiaková J, Celec P, Ostatníková D. Spatial abilities are not related to testosterone levels and variation in the androgen receptor in healthy young men. Gen Physiol Biophys 2014; 33:311-9. [DOI: 10.4149/gpb_2014005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/16/2013] [Accepted: 01/14/2014] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
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Celec P, Tretinárová D, Minárik G, Ficek A, Szemes T, Lakatošová S, Schmidtová E, Turňa J, Kádaši Ľ, Ostatníková D. Genetic polymorphisms related to testosterone metabolism in intellectually gifted boys. PLoS One 2013; 8:e54751. [PMID: 23382957 PMCID: PMC3559825 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0054751] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/18/2012] [Accepted: 12/18/2012] [Indexed: 12/31/2022] Open
Abstract
Prepubertal testosterone levels are lower in intellectually gifted boys. The aim of this pilot study was to analyze potential genetic factors related to testosterone metabolism in control and gifted boys. Intellectually gifted (IQ>130; n = 95) and control (n = 67) boys were genotyped. Polymorphisms of interests were chosen in genes including androgen and estrogen receptors, 5-alpha reductase, aromatase and sex hormone binding globulin. Significant differences between control and gifted boys in genotype distributions were found for ESR2 (rs928554) and SHBG (rs1799941). A significantly lower number of CAG repeats in the AR gene were found in gifted boys. Our results support the role of genetic factors related to testosterone metabolism in intellectual giftedness. Increased androgen signaling might explain previous results of lower testosterone levels in intellectually gifted boys and add to the understanding of variability in cognitive abilities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Peter Celec
- Institute of Molecular Biomedicine, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovak Republic.
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Leksa V, Pfisterer K, Ondrovičová G, Binder B, Lakatošová S, Donner C, Schiller HB, Zwirzitz A, Mrvová K, Pevala V, Kutejová E, Stockinger H. Dissecting mannose 6-phosphate-insulin-like growth factor 2 receptor complexes that control activation and uptake of plasminogen in cells. J Biol Chem 2012; 287:22450-62. [PMID: 22613725 DOI: 10.1074/jbc.m112.339663] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/06/2022] Open
Abstract
The plasminogen (Plg) activation cascade on the cell surface plays a central role in cell migration and is involved in a plethora of physiological and pathological processes. Its regulation is coordinated by many receptors, in particular the urokinase-type plasminogen activator receptor (uPAR, CD87), receptors that physically interact and functionally cooperate with uPAR, and Plg binding molecules. Here we studied the impact of one of the Plg binding molecules, the mannose 6-phosphate/insulin-like growth factor 2 receptor (M6P-IGF2R, CD222), on cellular Plg activation. By developing both in vitro and in vivo Plg activation assays on size-fractionated lysates of M6P-IGF2R-silenced cells, we identified Plg-associated complexes with M6P-IGF2R as the regulatory factor. Using lipid raft preserving versus dissolving detergents, we found lipid dependence of the Plg regulatory function of these complexes. Furthermore, M6P-IGF2R-silencing in uPAR-positive human cell lines reduced internalization of Plg, resulting in elevated Plg activation. In contrast, the expression of human M6P-IGF2R in mouse embryonic fibroblasts derived from M6P-IGF2R knock-out mice enhanced Plg internalization. Finally, peptide 18-36 derived from the Plg-binding site within M6P-IGF2R enhanced Plg uptake. Thus, by targeting Plg to endocytic pathways, M6P-IGF2R appears to control Plg activation within cells that might be important to restrict plasmin activity to specific sites and substrates.
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Affiliation(s)
- Vladimir Leksa
- Molecular Immunology Unit, Institute for Hygiene and Applied Immunology, Center for Pathophysiology, Infectiology and Immunology, Medical University of Vienna, A-1090 Vienna, Austria.
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