Mol Biol Rep. 2014 Mar;41(3):1591-5. doi: 10.1007/s11033-013-3005-5. Epub 2014 Jan 8. Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
I’ve been doing a research placement for the last few months as part of a team attempting to identify genetic CNVs (basically genetic abnormalities) which are linked with Autism. Currently doing some work for them that’s a bit tedious but I came across this study which I personally found pretty interesting... You don’t really get to see many studies on non-Western populations and when you do find them they tend to be in lesser-known journals such as this one, which also means it’s nearly impossible to access the full article as it’s pretty unlikely your university has bought a subscription to that journal. Same applies here, tragically, but the abstract is pretty intriguing on its own.
SHANK3 is a gene that’s been pretty substantially supported as having a connection to autism, and they found that having this common genetic variant in the SHANK3 gene, “rs9616915″, decreases your risk of Autism. The fact that this was a paper done in China with a Chinese population supports that SHANK3 really is connected with Autism across all cultures and isn’t just a unique feature of Western-based populations or something. Obviously it’s a bit annoying that we can’t check the methodology since there could be issues with the quality of how they conducted the study, but still.
(Okay, yes, YPIW is a nerd, but in my defense, I grew up in China and that’s why I get so excited about this kind of thing.)
