Structural, Genetic, and Functional Signatures of Disordered Neuro-Immunological Development in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Background: Numerous linkage studies have been performed in pedigrees of Autism Spectrum Disorders, and these studies point to diverse loci and etiologies of autism in different pedigrees. The underlying pattern may be identified by an integrative approach, especially since ASD is a complex disorder manifested through many loci. Method: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) was studied through two different and independent genome-scale measurement modalities. We analyzed the results of copy number variation in autism and triangulated these with linkage studies. Results: Consistently across both genome-scale measurements, the same two molecular themes emerged: immune/chemokine pathways and developmental pathways. Conclusion: Linkage studies in aggregate do indeed share a thematic consistency, one which structural analyses recapitulate with high significance. These results also show for the first time that genomic profiling of pathways using a recombination distance metric can capture pathways that are consistent with those obtained from copy number variations (CNV).