Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Transcriptome signatures from discordant sibling pairs reveal changes in peripheral blood immune cell composition in Autism Spectrum Disorder

2020; Springer Nature; Volume: 10; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1038/s41398-020-0778-x

2158-3188

Michele Filosi, Tony Kam‐Thong, Laurent Essioux, Pierandrea Muglia, Elisabetta Trabetti, Will Spooren, Bertram Müller-Myshok, Giovanni Alibrio, Laura Anchisi, Milena Andruccioli, Arianna Benvenuto, Pier Antonio Battistella, Flavio Boscaini, Carmela Bravaccio, Elisa Ceppi, Diego Cosentino, Paolo Curatolo, Lucio Da Ros, Bernardo Dalla Bernardina, Andrea De Giacomo, Giuseppa Di Vita, Enrico Domenici, Massimo Elia, Filippo Gitti, Serenella Grittani, Anna Linda Lamanna, Elisa Mani, Barbara Manzi, Lucia Margari, Gabriele Masi, Massimo Molteni, Pierandrea Muglia, Franco Nardocci, Antonio Pascotto, Antonia Parmeggiani, Pier Franco Pignatti, T. Piroddi, Paola Prandini, Emiliangelo Ratti, Paolo Rizzini, Sebastiano Russo, Renato Scifo, Raffaella Tancredi, Alessandra Tiberti, Elisabetta Trabetti, Leonardo Zoccante, Alessandro Zuddas, Enrico Domenici,

Virology and Viral Diseases

Abstract Notwithstanding several research efforts in the past years, robust and replicable molecular signatures for autism spectrum disorders from peripheral blood remain elusive. The available literature on blood transcriptome in ASD suggests that through accurate experimental design it is possible to extract important information on the disease pathophysiology at the peripheral level. Here we exploit the availability of a resource for molecular biomarkers in ASD, the Italian Autism Network (ITAN) collection, for the investigation of transcriptomic signatures in ASD based on a discordant sibling pair design. Whole blood samples from 75 discordant sibling pairs selected from the ITAN network where submitted to RNASeq analysis and data analyzed by complementary approaches. Overall, differences in gene expression between affected and unaffected siblings were small. In order to assess the contribution of differences in the relative proportion of blood cells between discordant siblings, we have applied two different cell deconvolution algorithms, showing that the observed molecular signatures mainly reflect changes in peripheral blood immune cell composition, in particular NK cells. The results obtained by the cell deconvolution approach are supported by the analysis performed by WGCNA. Our report describes the largest differential gene expression profiling in peripheral blood of ASD subjects and controls conducted by RNASeq. The observed signatures are consistent with the hypothesis of immune alterations in autism and an increased risk of developing autism in subjects exposed to prenatal infections or stress. Our study also points to a potential role of NMUR1, HMGB3, and PTPRN2 in ASD.