Metabolome signature of autism in the human prefrontal cortex

Ilia Kurochkin, Ekaterina Khrameeva, Anna Tkachev, Vita Stepanova, Anna Vanyushkina, Elena Stekolshchikova, Qian Li, Dmitry Zubkov, Polina Shichkova, Tobias Halene, Lothar Willmitzer, Patrick Giavalisco, Schahram Akbarian, Philipp Khaitovich

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

42 Scopus citations

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a common neurodevelopmental disorder with yet incompletely uncovered molecular determinants. Alterations in the abundance of low molecular weight compounds (metabolites) in ASD could add to our understanding of the disease. Indeed, such alterations take place in the urine, plasma and cerebellum of ASD individuals. In this work, we investigated mass-spectrometric signal intensities of 1,366 metabolites in the prefrontal cortex grey matter of 32 ASD and 40 control individuals. 15% of these metabolites showed significantly different intensities in ASD and clustered in 16 metabolic pathways. Of them, ten pathways were altered in urine and blood of ASD individuals (Fisher test, p < 0.05), opening an opportunity for the design of new diagnostic instruments. Furthermore, metabolic measurements conducted in 40 chimpanzees and 40 macaques showed an excess of metabolite intensity differences unique to humans, supporting the hypothesized disruption of evolutionary novel cortical mechanisms in ASD.

Original languageEnglish
Article number234
JournalCommunications Biology
Volume2
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Dec 2019

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