Association of Relative Telomere Length and LINE-1 Methylation with Autism but not with Severity.
Sohair Salem, Engy Ashaat
PMID 37014460WHAT IT FOUND
Blood tests for shorter telomeres and lower LINE-1 methylation distinguished autistic children and adolescents from healthy peers.
Neither marker correlated with symptom severity, sleep issues, or gastrointestinal problems, so they cannot indicate how severe a case is.
Key findings
01Relative telomere length was significantly shorter in autistic patients compared to controls, with an AUC of 0.817 indicating good discrimination between the groups.
02LINE-1 methylation percentage was significantly lower in autistic subjects than in controls, showing an AUC of 0.889 for predicting autism status.
03Neither telomere length nor LINE-1 methylation levels were associated with autism severity, EEG abnormalities, gastrointestinal disturbances, or sleep disorders.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The sample size was small (69 cases, 33 controls) and limited to one Egyptian center. The study is cross-sectional, so it cannot determine if these biomarkers cause autism or result from it. No association with severity or common comorbidities means these markers do not help characterize individual patient profiles. The biomarkers were not compared against other established diagnostic tools or clinical outcomes.
Declared interests
Funded by the Science and Technology Development Fund (STDF) in Egypt and the National Research Centre Egypt. No other conflicts declared.
The easy way to misread this
Do not use these blood tests to assess how severe a patient's autism is or to predict their response to therapy. The markers only distinguished autistic from non-autistic individuals on average, and showed no relationship with symptom severity or common co-occurring conditions like sleep or gastrointestinal issues.