Loss of delta-catenin function in severe autism.
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Turner TN, Sharma K, Oh EC, Liu YP, Collins RL, Sosa MX, Auer DR, Brand H, Sanders SJ, Moreno-De-Luca D, Pihur V, Plona T, Pike K, Soppet DR, Smith MW, Cheung SW, Martin CL, State MW, Talkowski ME, Cook E, Huganir R, Katsanis N, Chakravarti A
Loss of delta-catenin function in severe autism.
Nature. 2015 Apr 2;520(7545):51-6. doi: 10.1038/nature14186. Epub 2015 Mar 25.
- PubMed ID
- 25807484 [ View in PubMed]
- Abstract
Autism is a multifactorial neurodevelopmental disorder affecting more males than females; consequently, under a multifactorial genetic hypothesis, females are affected only when they cross a higher biological threshold. We hypothesize that deleterious variants at conserved residues are enriched in severely affected patients arising from female-enriched multiplex families with severe disease, enhancing the detection of key autism genes in modest numbers of cases. Here we show the use of this strategy by identifying missense and dosage sequence variants in the gene encoding the adhesive junction-associated delta-catenin protein (CTNND2) in female-enriched multiplex families and demonstrating their loss-of-function effect by functional analyses in zebrafish embryos and cultured hippocampal neurons from wild-type and Ctnnd2 null mouse embryos. Finally, through gene expression and network analyses, we highlight a critical role for CTNND2 in neuronal development and an intimate connection to chromatin biology. Our data contribute to the understanding of the genetic architecture of autism and suggest that genetic analyses of phenotypic extremes, such as female-enriched multiplex families, are of innate value in multifactorial disorders.