Integrated genome-wide Alu methylation and transcriptome profiling analyses reveal novel epigenetic regulatory networks associated with autism spectrum disorder.
Thanit Saeliw, Chayanin Tangsuwansri, Surangrat Thongkorn and 6 others
PMID 29686828WHAT IT FOUND
Overall Alu methylation and expression did not differ in autism blood cells, but altered autism genes were associated with Alu repeats, and subgroup differences appeared in small groups.
Key findings
01Genes with altered expression in autism blood samples were associated with genes containing Alu DNA repeats.
02In the cell-line model, overall Alu methylation and Alu expression did not differ between autism and control groups.
03Subgroup-specific differences were found: one methylation pattern was higher in subgroup M, another was lower in subgroup S, Alu expression was lower in subgroup L and higher in subgroup S.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
This is a laboratory and data-analysis study of cells grown from blood, not a clinical trial or therapy study. The experimental sample was small, with 56 cell lines total, and subgroup analyses used very small groups. All cell lines came from male individuals, so the work does not address females. The public gene-expression studies used different blood sample types and cohorts, and some did not use the same subgrouping method. The pathway links are software predictions and were not confirmed in brain tissue or by direct functional tests in this paper. The subgroup methylation and expression differences were not seen when all autism cases were combined, so they may reflect subgrouping rather than a general autism marker.
Declared interests
The article names Chulalongkorn University, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and the Thailand Research Fund as funders.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as evidence that Alu methylation can diagnose autism or guide therapy. The overall autism-versus-control methylation and expression measurements did not differ, and the subgroup findings came from small cell-line samples and need confirmation.