Showing posts with label autism specialist in houston. Show all posts
Showing posts with label autism specialist in houston. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 04, 2020

Autism, Cognitive Impairment Genetics - ZNF292 Variants in NeuroDevelopmental Disorders

This disorder has incomplete penetrance and a
MRI findings 

Features of ZNF292 neurodevelopmental disorder
very broad spectrum of presentation from ADD/ADHD to autism and cognitive impairment. The gene can be medically relevant. - JR

P.s. Thankful that I could contribute


De Novo and Inherited Variants in ZNF292 Underlie a Neurodevelopmental Disorder With Features of Autism Spectrum Disorder

Article here

Abstract

Purpose: Intellectual disability (ID) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are genetically heterogeneous neurodevelopmental disorders. We sought to delineate the clinical, molecular, and neuroimaging spectrum of a novel neurodevelopmental disorder caused by variants in the zinc finger protein 292 gene (ZNF292).
Methods: We ascertained a cohort of 28 families with ID due to putatively pathogenic ZNF292 variants that were identified via targeted and exome sequencing. Available data were analyzed to characterize the canonical phenotype and examine genotype-phenotype relationships.
Results: Probands presented with ID as well as a spectrum of neurodevelopmental features including ASD, among others. All ZNF292 variants were de novo, except in one family with dominant inheritance. ZNF292 encodes a highly conserved zinc finger protein that acts as a transcription factor and is highly expressed in the developing human brain supporting its critical role in neurodevelopment.
Conclusion: De novo and dominantly inherited variants in ZNF292 are associated with a range of neurodevelopmental features including ID and ASD. The clinical spectrum is broad, and most individuals present with mild to moderate ID with or without other syndromic features. Our results suggest that variants in ZNF292 are likely a recurrent cause of a neurodevelopmental disorder manifesting as ID with or without ASD.
Keywords: ZNF292; autism spectrum disorders; exome sequencing; intellectual disability; next-generation sequencing.
“ZNF292 encodes a highly conserved zinc finger protein that acts as a transcription factor. ZNF292 is composed of eight exons, the last of which is the largest and encodes all 16 highly conserved zinc fingers of the predicted 2723-residue protein (canonical transcript in GenBank: NM_015021.2). Three of these zinc fingers (10–12) bind DNA at the promoter of growth hormone where it cooperates with POU1F1, a member of the POU family of transcription factors known to activate transcription in somatotrophs.5 Accordingly, the ZNF292 protein was originally described as an enhancer of growth hormone (GH) expression in the pituitary gland of a rat animal model.5 Its role was further delineated as a tumor suppressor with critical roles in tumor development and progression.6 However, the role of ZNF292 in neurodevelopment is virtually unknown.”


Ghayda M. Mirzaa, MD 1,2,3, Jessica X. Chong, PhD2,3, Amélie Piton, MD4,5, Bernt Popp, MD6, Kimberly Foss, MS1, Hui Guo, PhD7, Ricardo Harripaul, MSc8,9, Kun Xia, PhD7, Joshua Scheck, BS1, Kimberly A. Aldinger, PhD1, Samin A. Sajan, PhD10, Sha Tang, PhD11, Dominique Bonneau, MD, PhD12,13, Anita Beck, MD, PhD2, Janson White, PhD14, Sonal Mahida, MGC, CGC15, Jacqueline Harris, MD15, Constance Smith-Hicks, MD, PhD15, Juliane Hoyer, MD6, Christiane Zweier, MD, PhD6, André Reis, MD6, Christian T. Thiel, MD6, Rami Abou Jamra, MD16, Natasha Zeid, MS, CGC17, Amy Yang, MD18,
Laura S. Farach, MD19, Laurence Walsh, MD20, Katelyn Payne, MS, CGC20, Luis Rohena, MD21,22,
Milen Velinov, MD, PhD23, Alban Ziegler, MD12,24, Elise Schaefer, MD, PhD25,
Vincent Gatinois, MD, PhD26,27,28, David Geneviève, MD, PhD26,27,28, Marleen E. H. Simon, MD29, Jennefer Kohler, MS30, Joshua Rotenberg, MD31, Patricia Wheeler, MD32, Austin Larson, MD33, Michelle E. Ernst, MS, CGC34, Cigdem I. Akman, MD34,35, Rachel Westman, MS, CGC36,
Patricia Blanchet, MD27, Lori-Anne Schillaci, MD37, Catherine Vincent-Delorme, MD38,
Karen W. Gripp, MD39, Francesca Mattioli, PhD40, Gwenaël Le Guyader, MD, PhD41,
Bénédicte Gerard, MD4, Michèle Mathieu-Dramard, MD42, Gilles Morin, MD43, Roksana Sasanfar, MD43, Muhammad Ayub, MD44, Nasim Vasli, PhD45, Sandra Yang, MS, CGC46, Rick Person, PhD46,
Kristin G. Monaghan, PhD46, Deborah A. Nickerson, PhD14, Ellen van Binsbergen, M Gregory M. Enns, MBChB30,47, Annika M. Dries, BS30, Leah J. Rowe, MS, CGC33, Anne C. H. Tsai, MD33, Shayna Svihovec, MS, CGC33, Jennifer Friedman, MD48,49, Zehra Agha, MD50, Raheel Qamar, MD50, Lance H. Rodan, MD51,52, Julian Martinez-Agosto, MD, PhD53, Charlotte W. Ockeloen, MD54,
Marie Vincent, MD55, William James Sunderland, PhD56, Jonathan A. Bernstein, MD, PhD30,47, Undiagnosed Diseases Network, Evan E. Eichler, PhD14,58, John B. Vincent, PhD8,9,
University of Washington Center for Mendelian Genomics (UW-CMG), Michael J. Bamshad, MD2,3
1Center for Integrative Brain Research, Seattle Children’s Research Institute, Seattle, WA, USA; 2Division of Genetic Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA; 3Brotman Baty Institute for Precision Medicine, Seattle, Washington, USA; 4Molecular Genetic Unit, Strasbourg University Hospital, Strasbourg, France; 5Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology, Université de Strasbourg, Illkirch, France; 6Institute of Human Genetics, University Hospital Elrangen, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität (FAU) Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany; 7Center for Medical Genetics & Hunan Key Laboratory of Medical Genetics, School of Life Sciences, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China; 8The Campbell Family Mental Health Research Institute, Centre for Addiction & Mental Health (CAMH), Toronto, ON, Canada; 9Institute of Medical Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada; 10Department of Clinical Genomics, Ambry Genetics, Aliso Viejo, CA, USA; 11WuXi NextCODE, Cambridge, MA, USA; 12Département de Biochimie et de Génétique, CHU d’Angers, Angers, France; 13UMR INSERM 1083 CNRS 6015, Angers, France; 14Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA; 15Department of Neurogenetics, Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD, USA; 16Institute of Human Genetics, University Medical Center Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany; 17Yale New Haven Health, New Haven, CT, USA; 18Department of Molecular and Medical Genetics, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR, USA; 19Department of Pediatrics, McGovern Medical School at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center, Houston, TX, USA; 20Indiana University Health at Riley Hospital for Children, Indianapolis, IN, USA; 21Division of Genetics, Department of Pediatrics, San Antonio Military Medical Center, San Antonio, TX, USA; 22Department of Pediatrics, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, USA; 23New York State Institute for Basic Research in Developmental Disability, NY, Staten Island, USA; 24Service de Génétique Médicale, Centre hospitalier, Le Mans, France; 25Service de Génétique Médicale, Hôpitaux Universitaires de Strasbourg, Institut de Génétique Médicale d’Alsace, Strasbourg, France; 26Service de génétique clinique, Département de Génétique Médicale, Maladies Rares et Médecine Personnalisée, Strasbourg, France; 27Centre de Référence Maladies Rares Anomalies du Développement et Syndromes Malformatifs Sud-Ouest Occitanie Réunion, Hôpital Arnaud de Villeneuve, Montpellier, France; 28Université Montpellier, Unité Inserm U1183, Montpellier, France; 29Department of Genetics, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands; 30Stanford Center for Undiagnosed Diseases, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA; 31Memorial Hermann Memorial City Medical Center, Houston, TX, USA; Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children, Orlando, FL, USA; 33Section of Genetics, Department of Pediatrics, University of Colorado School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital Colorado, Aurora, CO, USA; 34Institute for Genomic Medicine, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, NY, USA; 35Division of Pediatric Neurology, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, NY, USA; 36Division of Genetics, St. Luke’s Clinic, Boise, ID, USA; 37Department of Genetics and Genome Sciences, Case Western Reserve University, University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, Cleveland, OH, USA; 38Service de Génétique Clinique Guy Fontaine Centre de référence maladies rares Anomalies du dévelopement, Hôpital Jeanne de Flandre Lille, Lille, France; 39Department of Pediatrics, AI duPont Hospital, DE, Wilmington, USA; 40Institut de Genetique et de Biologie Moleculaire et Cellulaire, Illkirch-Graffenstaden, Lille, France; 41Service de Génétique Clinique, Centre de compétence Maladies rares Anomalies du dévelopement, CHU de Poitiers, Poitiers, France; 42Service de Génétique Clinique Centre de référence maladies rares Anomalies du dévelopement, CHU Amiens-Picardie, Amiens, France; 43Children’s Medical Center, UMass Memorial Medical Center, Worcester, MA, USA; 44Department of Psychiatry, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada; 45Division of Clinical & Metabolic Genetics, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada; 46GeneDx, Gaithersburg, MD, USA; Division of Medical Genetics, Department of Pediatrics, Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA; 48Departments of Neurosciences and Pediatrics, University of California San Diego and Division of Neurology, Rady Children’s Hospital, San Diego, CA, USA;  Rady Children’s Institute for Genomic Medicine, San Diego, CA, USA; 50Department of Biosciences, COMSATS University, Islamabad, Pakistan; 51Division of Genetics and Genomics, Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; 52Department of Neurology, Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; 53David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA; 54Department of Human Genetics, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; 55CHU de Nantes, Service de génétique médicale, Nantes, France; 56University of Washington Foundation Board, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA; 57NIH Undiagnosed Diseases Network, Office of the Director and the National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA; 58Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Association Between SSRI Use During Pregnancy and Autism and Developmental Delays in Boys

Interesting. High powered study. Association is not necessarily causation - JR

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Researchers Find Association Between SSRI Use During Pregnancy and Autism and Developmental Delays in Boys

HIGHEST ASSOCIATION FOUND DURING FIRST TRIMESTER EXPOSURE FOR AUTISM AND THIRD TRIMESTER EXPOSURE FOR DEVELOPMENTAL DELAYS

In a study of nearly 1,000 mother-child pairs, researchers from the Bloomberg School of Public health found that prenatal exposure to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), a frequently prescribed treatment for depression, anxiety and other disorders, was associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and developmental delays (DD) in boys. The study, published in the online edition of Pediatrics, analyzed data from large samples of ASD and DD cases, and population-based controls, where a uniform protocol was implemented to confirm ASD and DD diagnoses by trained clinicians using validated standardized instruments.
The study included 966 mother-child pairs from the Childhood Autism Risks from Genetics and the Environment (CHARGE) Study, a population-based case-control study based at the University of California at Davis’ MIND Institute. The researchers broke the data into three groups: Those diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), those with developmental delays (DD) and those with typical development (TD). The children ranged in ages two to five. A majority of the children were boys – 82.5% in the ASD group were boys, 65.6% in the DD group were boys and 85.6% in the TD were boys. " While the study included girls, the substantially stronger effect in boys alone suggests possible gender difference in the effect of prenatal SSRI exposure.
“We found prenatal SSRI exposure was nearly 3 times as likely in boys with ASD relative to typical development, with the greatest risk when exposure took place during the first trimester,” said Li-Ching Lee, Ph.D., Sc.M., psychiatric epidemiologist in the Bloomberg School’s Department of Epidemiology. “SSRI was also elevated among boys with DD, with the strongest exposure effect in the third trimester.”
...
Serotonin is critical to early brain development; exposure during pregnancy to anything that influences serotonin levels can have potential effect on birth and developmental outcomes. The prevalence of ASD continues to rise. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 1 in 68 children in the U.S. is identified with ASD, and it is almost five times more common among boys than girls.  One may question whether the increased use of SSRI in recent years is a contributor to the dramatic rise of ASD prevalence.

"This study provides further evidence that in some children, prenatal exposure to SSRIs may influence their risk for developing an autism spectrum disorder,” said Irva Hertz-Picciotto, Ph.D., M.P.H., chief of the Division of Environmental and Occupational Health in the UC Davis Department of Public Health Sciences and a researcher at the UC Davis MIND Institute.  “This research also highlights the challenge for women and their physicians to balance the risks versus the benefits of taking these medications, given that a mother’s underlying mental-health conditions also may pose a risk, both to herself and her child.”

Regarding treatment, the authors note that maternal depression itself carries risks for the fetus, and the benefits of using SSRI during pregnancy should be considered carefully against the potential harm. The researchers also note that large sample studies are needed to investigate the effects in girls with ASD. Limitations of the study acknowledged include the difficulty in isolating SSRI effects from those of their indications for use, lack of information on SSRI dosage precluded dose-response analyses, and the relatively small sample of DD children resulted in imprecise estimates of association, which should be viewed with caution.
“Prenatal SSRI Use and Offspring With Autism Spectrum Disorder or Developmental Delay” was written by Rebecca A. Harrington, PhD, MPH; Li-Ching Lee, PhD, ScM; Rosa M. Crum, MD, MHS; Andrew W. Zimmerman, MD; and Irva Hertz-Picciotto, PhD, MPH.
Data collection of this research was supported by U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS (#P01-ES11269 and #R01-ES015359), UC Davis MIND Institute and Autism Speaks.
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Media contact for Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: Susan Sperry at 410-955-6919 orssperry1@jhu.edu.

Monday, March 17, 2014

Jenny McCarthy Asks; the Internet Slam Dunks


I love this one! JR


Jenny McCarthy Asks; the Internet Slam Dunks

Just when you think that Internet commentary is nothing more than a wretched hive of scum and villainy, a light shines through so strongly it can help restore your optimism about people.
shutterstock_jenny_mccarthy
Ask, and oh boy shall ye receive.
By now you know about anti-vaccination mouthpiece Jenny McCarthy. I’ve written about her many times: how she claims vaccines cause autism (they don’t), how she “cured” her son of autism with a gluten-free diet (she didn’t), how she rails about vaccines being full of toxins (they aren’t) while literally injecting her face......Yeah, that Jenny McCarthy. It’s possible she’s more well-known in the general public for being a comedian, host of the The View, and of course a Playboy model, but on the ‘Net she’s widely understood to be a voice for frankly dangerous anti-vax nonsense.
On Thursday, McCarthy asked a question of her fans on Twitter to see what they’d say. What she got was a dose of the reality she helped spawn. The question:
Really, she should’ve known what would happen.......