NATURE: A Putative Blood-Based Biomarker for Autism Spectrum Disorder-Associated Ileocolitis

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http://www.nature.com/articles/srep35820?WT.feed_name=subjects_medical-research

A Putative Blood-Based Biomarker for Autism Spectrum Disorder-Associated Ileocolitis

Stephen J. Walker, Daniel P. Beavers, John Fortunato & Arthur Krigsman

Scientific Reports 6, Article number: 35820 (2016)
doi:10.1038/srep35820

Received: 11 May 2016
Accepted: 06 October 2016
Published online: 21 October 2016

ABSTRACT

Gastrointestinal symptoms are common in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). A significant proportion of children with ASD and gastrointestinal symptoms have histologic evidence of ileocolitis (inflammation of the terminal ileum and/or colon). We previously reported the molecular characterization of gastrointestinal biopsy tissue from ASD children with ileocolitis (ASDIC+) compared to anatomically similar inflamed tissue from typically developing children with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD; i.e. Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis) and typically developing children with gastrointestinal symptoms but no evidence of gastrointestinal mucosal inflammation (TDIC− ). ASDIC+ children had a gene expression profile that, while primarily overlapping with known IBD, had distinctive differences. The present study confirms these findings and replicates this molecular characterization in a second cohort of cases (ASDIC+) and controls (TDIC− ). In these two separate case/control mucosal-based cohorts, we have demonstrated overlap of 59 differentially expressed transcripts (DETs) unique to inflamed ileocolonic tissue from symptomatic ASDIC+ children. We now report that 9 of these 59 transcripts are also differentially expressed in the peripheral blood of the second cohort of ASDIC+ children. This set of transcripts represents a putative blood-based biomarker for ASD-associated ileocolonic inflammation.

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1. Fancy that.