Autism may be linked to missing DNA...

[Maestro]

Greetings ladies and gentlemen.

Canadian researches found that Autism could be linked to missing DNA on the X-chromosome.

Autism in some boys linked to missing DNA - Yahoo! Canada News

 

[evangilder]

Interesting. I will be watching this one as my son is high functioning autistic.

 

[Marcel]

Interesting. But the fact that only 1 percent of the affected boys had the mutant allele, means that it's only a minor QTL. Not a major breakthrough but a 'small step form mankind' I would say. They don't mention to have found any females with the mutation and ASD. Maybe it's just that rare?

 

[Maestro]

Yeah, but they also state that there are a lot of genes involved... Which suggest that different kind of dammaged gene(s) could lead to different kind of autism. But it is just my opinion...

 

[Night Fighter Nut]

They don't mention to have found any females with the mutation and ASD. Maybe it's just that rare?

I'm not sure but I think they mention that because girls have two X chromosomes, where as boys have only one, they don't develop autism as frequently as boys do. I have a son who has high functioning autism.

 

[Gnomey]

Certainly interesting but is also almost certainly not the only cause of it. More research is needed but it wouldn't be surprising if it was X-linked due to the relationship between males, females and autism.

 

[Marcel]

I'm not sure but I think they mention that because girls have two X chromosomes, where as boys have only one, they don't develop autism as frequently as boys do. I have a son who has high functioning autism.

Of course, but they must have tested females with autism. There they should have found females homozygous for the mutation. But testing 2000 (among which most if not all were male) would have been too few to find one. The most interesting part is if they will find mutations in other genes in the pathway. This could be a lead to further discoveries.

 

[Night Fighter Nut]

I agree the N in their sample size could be a bit larger and better incompasing.