2q21.1 Variations Link Autism, Attention Deficit

Researchers have found deletions and duplications of a small piece of chromosome 2 in people with autism, developmental delay, epilepsy or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The findings appeared 21 May in Human Molecular Genetics.A 2008 study linked the same genomic segment, dubbed 2q21.1, to families with a history of ADHD, but the region did not show up in several larger genetic studies of the disorder. The region is small — about 450 kilobases — and flanked by repetitive stretches of DNA, which makes it difficult to spot in genomic linkage screens.Read more at...SFARI, June 2012.