Rare Complete Knockouts in Humans: Population Distribution and Significant Role in Autism Spectrum Disorders

Elaine T. Lim, Soumya Raychaudhuri, Stephan J. Sanders, Christine Stevens, Aniko Sabo, Daniel G. MacArthur, Benjamin M. Neale, Andrew Kirby, Douglas M. Ruderfer, Menachem Fromer, Monkol Lek, Li Liu, Jason Flannick, Stephan Ripke, Uma Nagaswamy, Donna Muzny, Jeffrey G. Reid, Alicia Hawes, Irene Newsham, Yuanqing WuLora Lewis, Huyen Dinh, Shannon Gross, Li San Wang, Chiao Feng Lin, Otto Valladares, Stacey B. Gabriel, Mark dePristo, David M. Altshuler, Shaun M. Purcell, Matthew W. State, Eric Boerwinkle, Joseph D. Buxbaum, Edwin H. Cook, Richard A. Gibbs, Gerard D. Schellenberg, James S. Sutcliffe, Bernie Devlin, Kathryn Roeder, Mark J. Daly

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

219 Scopus citations

Abstract

To characterize the role of rare complete human knockouts in autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), we identify genes with homozygous or compound heterozygous loss-of-function (LoF) variants (defined as nonsense and essential splice sites) from exome sequencing of 933 cases and 869 controls. We identify a 2-fold increase in complete knockouts of autosomal genes with low rates of LoF variation (≤5% frequency) in cases and estimate a 3% contribution to ASD risk by these events, confirming this observation in an independent set of 563 probands and 4,605 controls. Outside the pseudoautosomal regions on the X chromosome, we similarly observe a significant 1.5-fold increase in rare hemizygous knockouts in males, contributing to another 2% of ASDs in males. Taken together, these results provide compelling evidence that rare autosomal and X chromosome complete gene knockouts are important inherited risk factors for ASD.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)235-242
Number of pages8
JournalNeuron
Volume77
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 23 2013

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Neuroscience

MD Anderson CCSG core facilities

  • Clinical Trials Office

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