title: Close genetic relationships between a spousal pair with autism-affected children and high minor allele content in cases in autism-associated SNPs.
abstract: Parents of children affected with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) often have mild forms of autistic-like characteristics. Past studies have focused on searching for individual genetic risk loci of ASD. Here we studied the overall properties of the genomes of ASD trios by using previously published genome-wide data for common SNPs. The pairwise genetic distance (PGD) between a spousal pair with ASD-affected children was found smaller than that of a random pair selected among the spouses in the ASD trios, and spousal relatedness correlated with severe forms of ASD. Furthermore, for a set of 970 ASD associated SNPs, cases showed higher homozygous minor allele content than parents. These results indicate new genetic elements in the broad phenotypes of parents with ASD-affected offspring and in ASD pathogenesis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics, Research Center for Neurobiology, Xuzhou Medical University, Xuzhou, Jiangsu 221004, China; State Key Laboratory of Medical Genetics, School of Life Sciences, Xiangya Medical School, Central South University, 110 Xiangya Road, Changsha, Hunan 410078, China.
authors.forename: Zuobin
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Medical Genetics, School of Life Sciences, Xiangya Medical School, Central South University, 110 Xiangya Road, Changsha, Hunan 410078, China.
authors.forename: Xitong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Medical Genetics, School of Life Sciences, Xiangya Medical School, Central South University, 110 Xiangya Road, Changsha, Hunan 410078, China.
authors.forename: Dejian
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Medical Genetics, School of Life Sciences, Xiangya Medical School, Central South University, 110 Xiangya Road, Changsha, Hunan 410078, China. Electronic address: huangshi@sklmg.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Shi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Huang
mesh_terms: D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000235:genetics*; D005260:Female; D005787:Gene Frequency; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009863:Only Child; D010290:Parents; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide
keywords: Minor allele content (MAC); Pairwise genetic distance (PGD)