
AsianScientist (Nov. 22, 2016) – Autistic individuals have a surprisingly homogenous pattern of epigenetic modifications, according to a study published in Cell. These findings raise the possibility of treating autism with epigenetic drugs.
Autism is an umbrella term for several brain disorders that have three symptoms in common: altered thought and imagination processes, social impairment and communication deficits. Despite massive worldwide DNA sequencing of autism patients, the causes of this disorder are still poorly understood due to its complexity. With no common disease mechanism known, it has been difficult to develop effective drugs that could treat the majority of autism patients.
In this study, an international team of researchers used a method known as epigenome profiling to characterize thousands of gene control elements across the genome in both healthy individuals and autism patients, focusing on epigenomic changes to DNA packaging molecules in specific regions of the brain. By comparing these two groups, the team discovered an autism-specific signature that could explain how autism develops in the majority of patients.
“We now have a method with which we can basically investigate any disease, and find the aberrant gene control regions. This development took six years,” said one of the study’s lead authors Dr. Sun Wenjie, a research associate at the Genome Institute of Singapore.
The article can be found at: Sun et al. (2016) Histone Acetylome-wide Association Study of Autism Spectrum Disorder.
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Source: A*STAR; Photo: Shutterstock.
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