Autism is a devastating neuropsychiatric condition with unknown pathophysiology. Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have an estimated incidence of 1/200 and thus are more common than many other childhood disorders. Although ASD have a multifactorial etiology, it has a large genetic component. It is also becoming clear that comprehensive efforts involving large sample sizes and methods to reduce heterogeneity are necessary to achieve maximal power to identify disease critical regions narrow enough to permit positional cloning of autism susceptibility genes. The investigators in this application aim to continue their collaborative effort that has produced and enhanced a highly successful open data and biomaterials resource for the research community, the Autism Genetic Resource Exchange (AGRE). This collaborative network application involving six research sites and the AGRE DCC, will systematically and comprehensively investigate the genetics of ASD to identify rare mutations, chromosomal abnormalities, and common variation contributing to ASD susceptibility. Specifically, they will enrich existing resources by adding 400 simplex families, including 200 families of African American descent, in addition to phenotype enrichment. The large overall sample size permits stratification of families based on analysis of heritable quantitative and qualitative endophenotypes. It further allows independent confirmation of loci as demonstrated for chromosome 17 and provides adequate sample for whole genome association studies to find loci with adequate power. The investigators will perform follow up linkage studies to confirm several new loci identified based on autism-related endophenotypes or co- variants, such as language delay, sex, and head circumference. In parallel, comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) using 500k SNP arrays will be performed, yielding the highest resolution molecular karyotypes and providing a resource on genome wide copy number variation (CNV) in ASD. CNV identified will be followed in family members and controls using QPCR and FISH. The use of SNP genotyping for CNV detection in ASD probands further provides for significant economies, since additional genotyping need only be conducted in the parents for efficient whole genome association studies. Regions or genes identified by linkage will be followed up by efficient, staged dense SNP genotyping. CNV assessment and WGA will also yield candidates that will be integrated with the linkage results for focused confirmatory studies, including re-sequencing to identify and confirm potentially causal genetic variants. Genetic risk factors identified in the mostly white European sample will be tested for association in the African American sample to determine whether these cohorts share the same genetic risk factors. All phenotypic and genotype data will be made accessible via the Internet on a rolling basis, including minority families, further enhancing the value of this resource to the community.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01MH081754-05
Application #
8228107
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZHD1-MRG-C (04))
Program Officer
Addington, Anjene M
Project Start
2008-04-01
Project End
2013-03-24
Budget Start
2012-02-01
Budget End
2013-03-24
Support Year
5
Fiscal Year
2012
Total Cost
$2,631,440
Indirect Cost
$469,659
Name
University of California Los Angeles
Department
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
092530369
City
Los Angeles
State
CA
Country
United States
Zip Code
90095
Zhu, Zuobin; Lu, Xitong; Yuan, Dejian et al. (2017) Close genetic relationships between a spousal pair with autism-affected children and high minor allele content in cases in autism-associated SNPs. Genomics 109:9-15
Ellis, S E; Panitch, R; West, A B et al. (2016) Transcriptome analysis of cortical tissue reveals shared sets of downregulated genes in autism and schizophrenia. Transl Psychiatry 6:e817
Leppa, Virpi M; Kravitz, Stephanie N; Martin, Christa Lese et al. (2016) Rare Inherited and De Novo CNVs Reveal Complex Contributions to ASD Risk in Multiplex Families. Am J Hum Genet 99:540-554
Berg, Jamee M; Lee, Changhoon; Chen, Leslie et al. (2015) JAKMIP1, a Novel Regulator of Neuronal Translation, Modulates Synaptic Function and Autistic-like Behaviors in Mouse. Neuron 88:1173-1191
Peñagarikano, Olga; Lázaro, María T; Lu, Xiao-Hong et al. (2015) Exogenous and evoked oxytocin restores social behavior in the Cntnap2 mouse model of autism. Sci Transl Med 7:271ra8
Oguro-Ando, A; Rosensweig, C; Herman, E et al. (2015) Increased CYFIP1 dosage alters cellular and dendritic morphology and dysregulates mTOR. Mol Psychiatry 20:1069-78
Burkett, Zachary D; Day, Nancy F; Peñagarikano, Olga et al. (2015) VoICE: A semi-automated pipeline for standardizing vocal analysis across models. Sci Rep 5:10237
Murdoch, John D; Gupta, Abha R; Sanders, Stephan J et al. (2015) No evidence for association of autism with rare heterozygous point mutations in Contactin-Associated Protein-Like 2 (CNTNAP2), or in Other Contactin-Associated Proteins or Contactins. PLoS Genet 11:e1004852
Turner, Tychele N; Sharma, Kamal; Oh, Edwin C et al. (2015) Loss of ?-catenin function in severe autism. Nature 520:51-6
Lowe, Jennifer K; Werling, Donna M; Constantino, John N et al. (2015) Social responsiveness, an autism endophenotype: genomewide significant linkage to two regions on chromosome 8. Am J Psychiatry 172:266-75

Showing the most recent 10 out of 59 publications