PLOS ONE RESEARCH ARTICLE Coupling of autism genes to tissue-wide expression and dysfunction of synapse, calcium signalling and transcriptional regulation 1 2,3 4 1,5 Jamie ReillyID *, Louise Gallagher , Geraldine Leader , Sanbing Shen * 1 Regenerative Medicine Institute, School of Medicine, Biomedical Science Building, National University of a1111111111 Ireland (NUI) Galway, Galway, Ireland, 2 Discipline of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland, 3 Trinity Translational Medicine Institute, Trinity Centre for Health SciencesÐTrinity College a1111111111 Dublin, St. James's Hospital, Dublin, Ireland, 4 Irish Centre for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Research a1111111111 (ICAN), Department of Psychology, National University of Ireland (NUI) Galway, Galway, Ireland, a1111111111 5 FutureNeuro Research Centre, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI), Dublin, Ireland a1111111111 *
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[email protected] (SS) Abstract OPEN ACCESS Citation: Reilly J, Gallagher L, Leader G, Shen S Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a heterogeneous disorder that is often accompanied (2020) Coupling of autism genes to tissue-wide with many co-morbidities. Recent genetic studies have identified various pathways from expression and dysfunction of synapse, calcium hundreds of candidate risk genes with varying levels of association to ASD. However, it is signalling and transcriptional regulation. PLoS ONE unknown which pathways are specific to the core symptoms or which are shared by the co- 15(12): e0242773. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0242773 morbidities. We hypothesised that critical ASD candidates should appear widely across dif- ferent scoring systems, and that comorbidity pathways should be constituted by genes Editor: Nirakar Sahoo, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, UNITED STATES expressed in the relevant tissues.