UCSD. US: Scientists at the University of California, San Diego School of
Medicine have found that mutations that cause autism in children are
connected to a pathway that regulates brain development. The research,
led by Lilia Iakoucheva, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of
Psychiatry, is published in the February 18 issue of Neuron.
The researchers studied a set of well-known autism mutations called
copy number variants or CNVs. They investigated when and where the genes
were expressed during brain development. “One surprising thing that we
immediately observed was that different CNVs seemed to be turned on in
different developmental periods,” said Iakoucheva.
Specifically, the scientists noted that one CNV located in a region
of the genome known as 16p11.2, contained genes active during the late
mid-fetal period. Ultimately, they identified a network of genes that
showed a similar pattern of activation including KCTD13 within 16p11.2
and CUL3, a gene from a different chromosome that is also mutated in
children with autism.
“The most exciting moment for us was when we realized that the
proteins encoded by these genes form a complex that regulates the levels
of a third protein, RhoA,” said Iakoucheva. Rho proteins play critical
roles in neuronal migration and brain morphogenesis at early stages of
brain development. “Suddenly, everything came together and made sense.”
Further experiments confirmed that CUL3 mutations disrupt interaction
with KCTD13, suggesting that 16p11.2 CNV and CUL3 may act via the same
RhoA pathway. RhoA levels influence head and body size in zebrafish, a
model organism used by geneticists to investigate gene functions.
Children with 16p11.2 CNV also have enlarged or decreased head sizes and
suffer from obesity or are underweight. “Our model fits perfectly with
what we observe in the patients,” said Guan Ning Lin, PhD, a fellow in
Iakoucheva’s laboratory and co-first author with Roser Corominas, PhD.
Interestingly, the RhoA pathway has recently been implicated in a
rare form of autism called Timothy syndrome, which is caused by the
mutation in a completely different gene. “The fact that three different
types of mutations may act via the same pathway is remarkable,” said
Iakoucheva. “My hope is that we would be able to target it
therapeutically.”
Iakoucheva and colleagues are planning to test RhoA pathway
inhibitors using a stem cell model of autism. “If we can discover the
precise mechanism and develop targeted treatments for a handful of
children, or even for a single child with autism, I would be happy,” she
said.
Co-authors include Xinping Yang, David E. Hill and Marc Vidal,
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute; Irma Lemmens and Jan Tavernier, Ghent
University, Belgium; and Jonathan Sebat, Beyster Center for Genomics of
Psychiatric Diseases and UCSD.
This research was funded, in part, by National Institutes of Health
(grants R01MH091350, R01HD065288, R21MH104766 and R01MH105524).