Duplications or deletions of portions of the genome may cause many - if not most - cases of autism.
Such errors can alter the number of copies of particular genes in the regions affected. These copy-number variations are 10 times as common in autistic children as in other children.
A team led by Jonathan Sebat of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, New York, examined 118 families that have one autistic child and 99 families with children who are not autistic. Ten per cent of the autistic children, but only 1 per cent of the other children, had copy-number variants in their genomes that didn't appear in their parents (Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1138659).
The copy-number variants tend to affect different genes in each autistic child. This suggests that autism is not caused by a single genetic defect.
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Have your say
Autism And Genes
Wed Aug 27 19:44:42 BST 2008 by Keithwren
How can intelligent people not know the cause of autism? I have known for decades. The brain development is a genetic thing as is the complete development of the whole person. Mutant genes are the culprits, spurred (a Texas word) on by the synthetic chemical disrupters. ÂNormal developmentâ� results from a combination of normal cells and natural chemicals that regulate the turning on and off of specific genes, allowing appropriate development. The autism explosion is a result of decades of living with environmental pollutants, by far the worst inside our homes. If you people are paying attention, and still with me, lately the news has been hinting at different things that âcouldâ� cause a problem. They may never tell you the truth simply because the biggest television advertisers are the people that are marketing these deadly household products.
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