X

Posts

April 23, 2013

+
12:33 PM | Autism and the methylome
Q: When is an identical twin not an identical twin? A: Pretty much all the time (at least according to some people) as our increasing understanding of the complexity of genetics stretches and modifies long-held beliefs about the building blocks of life and their role in our health and wellbeing.DNA methylation differences? @ Wikipedia  Today I'm talking about identical (monozygotic) twins - siblings derived from one fertilised egg - and how the science of epigenetics might have […]

Wong, C., Meaburn, E., Ronald, A., Price, T., Jeffries, A., Schalkwyk, L., Plomin, R. & Mill, J. (2013). Methylomic analysis of monozygotic twins discordant for autism spectrum disorder and related behavioural traits, Molecular Psychiatry, DOI:

Questioning Answers
Psychiatry | Psychology
Citation

April 04, 2013

+
9:43 AM | CNV duplication load, hotspots and autism
Viewers here in the UK might remember the catchphrase of one Michael Barrymore on the show 'Strike It Lucky': "What is a hotspot not? A good spot". It is with a rather different kind of hotspot in mind, that I'm posting about today: genomic hotspots and autism with a specific focus on copy number variants.An intriguing paper by Santhosh Girirajan and colleagues* (open-access) popped up on my Twitter radar recently discussing copy number variant (CNV) load in relation to autism spectrum […]

Girirajan S, Johnson RL, Tassone F, Balciuniene J, Katiyar N, Fox K, Baker C, Srikanth A, Yeoh KH, Khoo SJ & Nauth TB (2013). Global increases in both common and rare copy number load associated with autism., Human molecular genetics, PMID:

Questioning Answers
Psychiatry | Psychology
Citation

February 21, 2013

+
7:21 PM | Myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) and HERVs
Viruses. Apparently there are quite a lot of them on this old rock we call home and I've started to become quite interested in some of them, or at least how we as a species have, and continue to interact with them down the ages.I must start by thanking Natasa for bringing me into contact with the paper by Kenny De Meirleir and colleagues* (open-access) looking at human endogenous retrovirus (HERV) expression in a small cohort of patients diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME). I'm […]

KENNY L. DE MEIRLEIR, SVETLANA F. KHAIBOULLINA, MARC FRÉMONT, JAN HULSTAERT, ALBERT A. RIZVANOV, ANDRÁS PALOTÁS & VINCENT C. LOMBARDI (2013). Plasmacytoid dendritic cells in the duodenum of individuals diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis are uniquely immunoreactive to antibodies to human endogenous retroviral proteins, In Vivo, 27 (2) 177-187. Other: Link

Questioning Answers
Psychiatry | Psychology
Citation

November 18, 2012

+
10:03 AM | Human Endogenous Retroviruses (HERVs) and autism
Please don't be put off by the title of this post or the jargon it contains. I merely offer some discussion on a paper recently published at Emanuela Balestrieri and colleagues* (open-access) on the expression of Human Endogenous Retroviruses (HERVs) in cases of autism.The Martians are a comin' @ Wikipedia  HERVs are probably best described as the genetic remnants of viruses stored in the human genome. Consider this: over the course of the evolution of humankind, we have been in contact […]

Balestrieri E, Arpino C, Matteucci C, Sorrentino R, Pica F, Alessandrelli R, Coniglio A, Curatolo P, Rezza G, Macciardi F & Garaci E (2012). HERVs Expression in Autism Spectrum Disorders., PloS one, 7 (11) PMID:

Questioning Answers
Psychiatry | Psychology
Citation
1
4 Results