title: Replication of the association of a MET variant with autism in a Chinese Han population.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Autism is a common, severe and highly heritable neurodevelopmental disorder in children, affecting up to 100 children per 10,000. The MET gene has been regarded as a promising candidate gene for this disorder because it is located within a replicated linkage interval, is involved in pathways affecting the development of the cerebral cortex and cerebellum in ways relevant to autism patients, and has shown significant association signals in previous studies.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Here, we present new ASD patient and control samples from Heilongjiang, China and use them in a case-control and family-based replication study of two MET variants. One SNP, rs38845, was successfully replicated in a case-control association study, but failed to replicate in a family-based study, possibly due to small sample size. The other SNP, rs1858830, failed to replicate in both case-control and family-based studies.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This is the first attempt to replicate associations in Chinese autism samples, and our result provides evidence that MET variants may be relevant to autism susceptibility in the Chinese Han population.
authors: Department of Children's and Adolescent Health, Public Health College of Harbin Medical University, Harbin, Heilongjiang, People's Republic of China.
authors: Xue
authors: X
authors: Zhou
authors: Yang
authors: Y
authors: Xu
authors: Jia
authors: J
authors: Wang
authors: Hongbo
authors: H
authors: Zhou
authors: Xian
authors: X
authors: Liu
authors: Qasim
authors: Q
authors: Ayub
authors: Xuelai
authors: X
authors: Wang
authors: Chris
authors: C
authors: Tyler-Smith
authors: Lijie
authors: L
authors: Wu
authors: Yali
authors: Y
authors: Xue
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D044466:Asian People / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000235:genetics*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D002659:Child Development Disorders, Pervasive / Q000235:genetics*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000235:genetics*; D005260:Female; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide / Q000235:genetics*; D019859:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-met / Q000235:genetics*; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: C491743:MET protein, human; D019859:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-met