Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) affect child development and cause alterations in the communication and socialization capacity of those affected. In Spain it is estimated that around 450,000 people have autism, according to data from autismogalicia.org, and the latest European research studies (Autism-Europe aisbl 2015) indicate that one in every 100 children born has ASD. In the United States, the prevalence of autism is very high, since according to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) it affects one in 54 people.
ASDs have very varied characteristics and their degrees of intensity and causes are also different. One of the types of autism is maternal autoantibody-related autism spectrum disorder (ASD MAR). An autoantibody is an antibody that develops the immune system and acts directly against one or more antigens of the individual, and ASD MAR is characterized by the presence of this type of specific maternal immune proteins –autoantibodies– that react to certain proteins that They are found in the fetal brain.
Maternal autoantibodies (IgG) penetrate through the placenta and enter the developing fetal brain, where they can cause alterations in the way this organ develops and lead to behaviors typical of autism. Now, researchers at the University of California Davis MIND Institute have found evidence of predictive patterns of proteins in the blood of pregnant women and links of ASD MAR with a greater intensity of autistic traits.
Predict autism before the baby is born
Judy Van de Water, professor of immunology and neurodevelopment at UC Davis and lead author of the study, and a team of scientists demonstrated that binding of autoantibodies to nine specific combinations of proteins—known as maternal autoantibody-related autism spectrum disorder (ASD) patterns )– highly predicts autism in previously diagnosed children. They analyzed maternal blood samples drawn during pregnancy to try to validate the patterns they had identified, because they wanted to see if the patterns accurately predicted autism in children.
A woman with reactivity to any of the 9 patterns of maternal autoantibody-related autism spectrum disorder is 8 times more likely to have an autistic child
The researchers analyzed plasma from 540 mothers of autistic children, 184 mothers of children with intellectual disability but without autism, and 420 mothers from the general population whose children did not have autism or intellectual disability at the time of the study. They found reactivity to at least one of nine patterns of autism spectrum disorder related to maternal autoantibodies. Four patterns were present only in women whose children were later diagnosed with autism, indicating that those particular autoantibody patterns are highly predictive.
The results of the study, which has been published in Molecular Psychiatry, also revealed that a mother with reactivity to any of the nine ASD MAR patterns is around eight times more likely to have an autistic child. Several ASD MAR patterns were strongly linked with autism with intellectual disability, and others with autism without intellectual disability. The protein pattern most strongly linked to autism was (CRMP1+CRMP2), which increased the likelihood of an autism diagnosis by 16-fold, and was not found in the groups without autism.
Although further studies are needed to understand why pregnant women develop these antibodies and how long they can last, ASD MAR pattern tests could be used to assess the likelihood that a child has ASD, before symptoms of autism manifest. The researchers’ goal is to develop an accurate clinical test that provides clinicians with new tools for earlier diagnosis of ASDs. “We hope that our work can help develop services better tailored to the type of autism and the specific strengths and challenges of the child,” Van de Water concludes.
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