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Identification of common genetic risk variants for autism spectrum disorder

  • Autism Spectrum Disorder Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium
  • , BUPGEN
  • , Major Depressive Disorder Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium
  • , 23andMe Research Team
  • The Lundbeck Foundation Initiative for Integrative Psychiatric Research
  • iSEQ
  • Aarhus University
  • Department of Biomedicine
  • Bioinformatics Research Centre
  • Analytic and Translational Genetics Unit
  • Massachusetts General Hospital
  • Broad Institute
  • Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy
  • Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin
  • Department of Psychiatry
  • University of Würzburg
  • Karolinska Institutet
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • National Centre for Register-Based Research
  • Centre for Integrated Register-based Research
  • KG Jebsen Centre for Psychosis Research
  • University of Oslo
  • Division of Mental Health and Addiction
  • Cardiff University
  • Seaver Autism Center for Research and Treatment
  • Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
  • Department of Psychiatry
  • Friedman Brain Institute
  • The Mindich Child Health and Development Institute
  • Center for Neonatal Screening
  • Statens Serum Institut
  • Program in Medical and Population Genetics
  • Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics
  • Department of Psychiatry
  • University of Pittsburgh
  • Department of Medical Genetics
  • Institute of Biological Psychiatry
  • MHC Sct. Hans
  • Department of Neurohabilitation
  • Genomics
  • Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
  • NevSom
  • Institute for Molecular Genetics Finland
  • University of Helsinki
  • Language and Genetics Department
  • Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
  • University of Bristol
  • Radboud University Nijmegen
  • University of Amsterdam

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a highly heritable and heterogeneous group of neurodevelopmental phenotypes diagnosed in more than 1% of children. Common genetic variants contribute substantially to ASD susceptibility, but to date no individual variants have been robustly associated with ASD. With a marked sample-size increase from a unique Danish population resource, we report a genome-wide association meta-analysis of 18,381 individuals with ASD and 27,969 controls that identified five genome-wide-significant loci. Leveraging GWAS results from three phenotypes with significantly overlapping genetic architectures (schizophrenia, major depression, and educational attainment), we identified seven additional loci shared with other traits at equally strict significance levels. Dissecting the polygenic architecture, we found both quantitative and qualitative polygenic heterogeneity across ASD subtypes. These results highlight biological insights, particularly relating to neuronal function and corticogenesis, and establish that GWAS performed at scale will be much more productive in the near term in ASD.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)431-444
Number of pages14
JournalNature Genetics
Volume51
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 25 Feb 2019
Externally publishedYes

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