It has been just reported the fact that the butterfly effect could have the potential to explain some genetic causes of autism. Check out the latest reports about this below.
Butterfly effect and genetic causes of autism
DNA mutations in genes unrelated to autism may switch on genes tied to the disorder due to a complex ripple effect known as the “butterfly effect.” Promoters in DNA can control genes far away from them in the sequence, forming a regulatory “unit” called a topologically associated domain (TAD).
The study suggests that mutations in promoters rather than autism-linked genes may lead to the development of the disorder. The findings were published in Cell Genomics.
Autism has a high heritability rate with an estimated 40% to 80% of cases linked to passed down genes. However, some cases of autism can also result from spontaneous mutations that occur in DNA.
Recent research has revealed that mutations in “non-coding” regions of DNA, which make up about 98.5% of the genome, including promoters, can cause autism. These regions are called “non-coding” because they do not contain instructions to build proteins, unlike genes.
The impact of mutations in non-coding DNA on the likelihood of having autism spectrum disorder (ASD) was previously unknown but a new study has started to address this question.
The researchers analyzed the DNA of over 5,000 individuals with autism, including their siblings who did not have the condition. They were searching for non-inherited mutations and employed specialized techniques to map the 3D structure of the genome and identify TAD boundaries surrounding genes linked to autism.
The team discovered a direct connection between autism and gene regulatory mechanisms that are related to TADs, particularly those that include genes known to be associated with autism.
Sometimes, changing just one “letter,” or base, in DNA’s code was linked to a higher likelihood of autism, senior study author Dr. Atsushi Takata, a researcher at the Riken Center for Brain Science in Japan, told Live Science in an email.
“The results showed that just a single base of DNA sequence difference in a non protein-coding region can affect the expression of nearby genes,” he said, “which in turn can alter the overall gene expression profile of distant genes in the genome, leading to an increased risk of ASD.”
