Nobel Intent on Autism, TV, and Gene Regulation

Nobel Intent is a “science-centric journal” that follows “the tech and trends pulsating around the ‘net” and is a part of Ars Technica. I first read John Timmer’s thoughtfully reasoned October 17th post on Does TV pull the trigger on autism?. In regard to Cornell School of Business professor Michael Waldman’s hypothesis that “early childhood television watching is an important trigger for autism” and that we ought therefore to “act as if it were,” Timmer asks if this statement

….does, however, bring us to what is probably the most significant caveat: what does this actually mean? Is it television viewing itself that’s changing childhood development? Or is TV viewing simply correlated with something else, such as an environment without good options for social interactions? Pulling the children away from the TV, but into an otherwise harmful environment might wind up being a useless gesture that helps parents feel better, but does nothing for their kids.

Timmer posts today about Autism and Gene Regulation lucidly explains a new study that seeks to identify an autism gene. The researchers

scanned the five suspect regions for genes known to have multiple biological functions, and zeroed in MET, a growth factor receptor that’s used for a variety of processes. They next examined MET in a collection of about 1,200 cases from 200+ families that had autistic members, based on very broad diagnostic criteria (autism symptoms can vary and this sampling included autism-related disorders). A quick scan of inheritance revealed that variations in and around the MET gene were inherited in two blocks, one holding the protein-coding sequences, and the other information that regulates gene expression. Using these families, they found that autism was inherited with the regulatory sequences, and eventually identified a single base difference (G-to-C) that increased the risk of autism.

As Timmer notes, this new study is notable for its use of genetic analysis along with a biochemical explanation. In a slight rephrasing of the belief that certain individuals may have a genetic predisposition to developing an autism spectrum disorder,” Timmer writes that it seems that “autism requires a confluence of genetic and environmental factors,” thereby reminding us of the complicated interplay of these in the aetiology of autism.