title: Impairment of translation in neurons as a putative causative factor for autism.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  A dramatic increase in the prevalence of autism and Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) has been observed over the last two decades in USA, Europe and Asia. Given the accumulating data on the possible role of translation in the etiology of ASD, we analyzed potential effects of rare synonymous substitutions associated with ASD on mRNA stability, splicing enhancers and silencers, and codon usage.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  We hypothesize that subtle impairment of translation, resulting in dosage imbalance of neuron-specific proteins, contributes to the etiology of ASD synergistically with environmental neurotoxins.
  
  
  METHODS
  A statistically significant shift from optimal to suboptimal codons caused by rare synonymous substitutions associated with ASD was detected whereas no effect on other analyzed characteristics of transcripts was identified. This result suggests that the impact of rare codons on the translation of genes involved in neuron development, even if slight in magnitude, could contribute to the pathogenesis of ASD in the presence of an aggressive chemical background. This hypothesis could be tested by further analysis of ASD-associated mutations, direct biochemical characterization of their effects, and assessment of in vivo effects on animal models.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  It seems likely that the synergistic action of environmental hazards with genetic variations that in themselves have limited or no deleterious effects but are potentiated by the environmental factors is a general principle that underlies the alarming increase in the ASD prevalence.
  
  
  METHODS
  This article was reviewed by Andrey Rzhetsky, Neil R. Smalheiser, and Shamil R. Sunyaev.
authors.forename: Eugenia
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Poliakov
authors.affiliation: National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA. koonin@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.
authors.forename: Eugene V
authors.initials: EV
authors.lastname: Koonin
authors.forename: Igor B
authors.initials: IB
authors.lastname: Rogozin
mesh_terms: D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000235:genetics*; D003062:Codon / Q000235:genetics; D005091:Exons / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D009154:Mutation / Q000235:genetics; D009474:Neurons / Q000378:metabolism*; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide / Q000235:genetics; D014176:Protein Biosynthesis / Q000235:genetics*; D012326:RNA Splicing / Q000235:genetics; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D003062:Codon; D012333:RNA, Messenger; D014157:Transcription Factors