Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impairments in reciprocal social interaction and communication and the presence of restricted and repetitive patterns of interest or behavior. With the improved surveillance and a broadening of the diagnostic criteria, the most recent prevalence study suggests that autism affects as many as 1 in 300 children in the US. Treatments are few and most have little impact on the very significant morbidity. Little is known about the etiology of autism, but it does have a strong genetic component. Despite this significant genetic effect studies over the past decade have clearly shown that the underlying genetics is complex with the likelihood that several genes acting independently as well as interactively significantly raise the risk of autism. With this realization the field of autism genetics is at a critical juncture. To move forward we must embrace new and creative paradigms to successfully dissect the genetic etiology of this disease. During the current funding period we have emphasized both innovative and established genomic approaches to begin teasing apart the complex weave of autism genetics. In our renewal we will expand and build on previous results embracing the paradigm that the wedding of new genomic technology with novel statistical methodology will bring about success. Specifically we propose to 1) Broaden our ascertainment scheme to include the full range of the autism spectrum disorder phenotype, 2) Identify the chromosome 19 autism gene, 3) Investigate a newly defined linkage to chromosome 12 in large extended multigenerational autism families, 4) Extend our studies of the GABA receptor subunits genes, 5) Identify clinically homogeneous subsets of patients and families and use the refined dataset to fine map ASD chromosomal regions and in candidate gene analyses, 6) Test for evidence of new gene/gene interactions to fully explain the spectrum of autism risk. These efforts will be integrated to address an important problem in childhood disease, the genetics of autism spectrum disorders.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01MH080647-15
Application #
8068862
Study Section
Neurological, Aging and Musculoskeletal Epidemiology (NAME)
Program Officer
Lehner, Thomas
Project Start
2007-08-24
Project End
2013-10-31
Budget Start
2011-05-01
Budget End
2013-10-31
Support Year
15
Fiscal Year
2011
Total Cost
$1,125,352
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Miami School of Medicine
Department
Internal Medicine/Medicine
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
052780918
City
Coral Gables
State
FL
Country
United States
Zip Code
33146
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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
DeRosa, Brooke A; Belle, Kinsley C; Thomas, Blake J et al. (2015) hVGAT-mCherry: A novel molecular tool for analysis of GABAergic neurons derived from human pluripotent stem cells. Mol Cell Neurosci 68:244-57
Cuccaro, Michael L; Czape, Kayla; Alessandri, Michael et al. (2014) Genetic testing and corresponding services among individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Am J Med Genet A 164A:2592-600
Correia, Catarina; Oliveira, Guiomar; Vicente, Astrid M (2014) Protein interaction networks reveal novel autism risk genes within GWAS statistical noise. PLoS One 9:e112399
Gaugler, Trent; Klei, Lambertus; Sanders, Stephan J et al. (2014) Most genetic risk for autism resides with common variation. Nat Genet 46:881-5
Park, Yo Son; Schmidt, Michael; Martin, Eden R et al. (2013) Pathway-PDT: a flexible pathway analysis tool for nuclear families. BMC Bioinformatics 14:267
Hadjixenofontos, Athena; Schmidt, Michael A; Whitehead, Patrice L et al. (2013) Evaluating mitochondrial DNA variation in autism spectrum disorders. Ann Hum Genet 77:9-21
DeRosa, Brooke A; Van Baaren, Jessica M; Dubey, Gaurav K et al. (2012) Derivation of autism spectrum disorder-specific induced pluripotent stem cells from peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Neurosci Lett 516:9-14
Anney, Richard; Klei, Lambertus; Pinto, Dalila et al. (2012) Individual common variants exert weak effects on the risk for autism spectrum disorders. Hum Mol Genet 21:4781-92

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