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The Unique Evolutionary Signature of Genes Associated with Autism Spectrum Disorder

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Abstract

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a common heritable neurodevelopmental disorder, which is characterized by communication and social deficits that reduce the reproductive fitness of individuals with the disorder. Here, we studied the genomic characteristics of 651 ASD genes in a whole-exome sequencing dataset, to search for traces of the evolutionary forces that helped maintain ASD in the human population. We show that ASD genes are ~65 longer and ~20 % less variable than non-ASD genes. The mutational shortage in ASD genes was particularly eminent when considering only deleterious genetic variations, which is a hallmark of negative selection. We further show that these genomic characteristics are unique to ASD genes, as compared with brain-specific genes or with genes of other diseases. Our findings suggest that ASD genes have evolved under complex evolutionary forces, which have left a unique signature that can be used to identify new candidate ASD genes.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are thankful to Dr. Ram Gal for the editing of the manuscript and his useful comments.

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Correspondence to Idan Menashe.

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Mr. Erez Tsur declares that he has no conflict of interest. Prof. Michael Friger declares that he has no conflict of interest. Dr. Idan Menashe declares that he has no conflict of interest.

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Edited by Stacey Cherny.

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10519_2016_9804_MOESM1_ESM.tif

Figure S1: Venn diagram of the genes associated with autism spectrum disorder 489 (ASD), schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease, and asthma (TIFF 124 kb)

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Tsur, E., Friger, M. & Menashe, I. The Unique Evolutionary Signature of Genes Associated with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Behav Genet 46, 754–762 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-016-9804-4

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