FLICKR, MEHMET PINARCIMore than half of autism risk can be traced to inherited variation, according to a study published this week (July 20) in Nature Genetics: about 52 percent of the risk was attributed to common and rare inherited variation, with just 2.6 percent of the total risk blamed on spontaneous mutations that arise during development.
“Genetic variation likely accounts for roughly 60 percent of the liability for autism, with common variants comprising the bulk of its genetic architecture,” Joseph Buxbaum of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City said in a National Institutes of Health (NIH) press release. “Although each exerts just a tiny effect individually, these common variations in the genetic code add up to substantial impact, taken together.”
“Knowing the nature of the genetic risk will reveal clues to the molecular roots of the disorder,” added Thomas Insel, director of the NIH’s National Institute of Mental Health, which helped fund the research. “Common variation may be more important than we thought.”
Estimates of autism’s heritability have ranged from 17 percent to 50 percent, ...
