Brief Report: A Gene Enrichment Approach Applied to Sleep and Autism.
Emily A Abel, A J Schwichtenberg, Olivia R Mannin and 1 others
PMID 30790196WHAT IT FOUND
Sleep-related genes appeared more often than expected among autism risk genes, but this database analysis tested no patients and offers no therapy guidance.
Key findings
01Fifteen genes appeared in both the sleep gene set and the autism core gene set.
02That overlap was larger than expected by chance.
03The authors excluded the MECP2/Rett and sudden infant death pathways from discussion because they came only from a community database.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
This was a database analysis, not a study of patients. The overlap method did not account for gene size, which could increase false positives. Some sleep genes came from large genetic studies that used self-report sleep measures. The sleep gene set included a broad range of sleep disorders that are biologically distinct. The authors say the findings are preliminary and need replication.
Declared interests
The named authors declared no conflict of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the gene overlap as proof that sleep problems in autism have a shared genetic cause. The paper analysed gene lists, not patients, and the authors call the findings preliminary.