Study Ties Three Immune Genes to Autism

Common variants in three genes involved in the immune system are more likely to crop up in people with autism than in typical controls, according to a study published 9 June in Molecular Autism.Many genetic and epidemiological studies in the past few years have found unexpected connections between psychiatric disorders and the immune system.Large genetic screens have shown, for example, that people with schizophrenia tend to carry common glitches in the major histocompatibility complex, a genomic region that contains a slew of genes related to immune function. One report found that some autism risk genes belong to larger networks of genes related to cytokines, which transmit messages in the immune system.Read more at...SFARI, July 2012.