Bowel gene linked to a type of autism

Bowel gene linked to a type of autism - health - 11 March 2009 - New Scientist

ON TOP of dealing with social and learning difficulties, people with autism also run an unusually high risk of bowel disorders. Now a gene variant has been found that may explain this link.

A large proportion of people with autism also have problems such as chronic diarrhoea, constipation or food intolerance. The MET gene, which has been linked to autism, is known to play a role in the repair of damaged gut tissue, so Daniel Campbell of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, thought this gene might be involved.

Sure enough, in 118 families in which at least one child had both autism and gut disorders, his team found that a particular variant of the MET gene was more common in the child with autism than in its parents, suggesting the gene played a role in their autism. By contrast this was not the case in 96 families where the children with autism did not have gut problems, suggesting their autism had a different cause (Pediatrics, DOI: 10.1542/peds.2008-0819).

Knowing the underlying genetic cause of an individual's autism could eventually lead to better ways of treating the condition.