A Novel Stratification Method in Linkage Studies to Address Inter- and Intra-Family Heterogeneity in Autism.

ABSTRACT: Most genome linkage scans for autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) have failed to be replicated. Recently, a new ASD phenotypic sub-classification method was developed which employed cluster analyses of severity scores from the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R). Here, we performed linkage analysis for each of the four identified ADI-R stratified subgroups. Additional stratification was also applied to reduce intra-family heterogeneity and to investigate the impact of gender. For the purpose of replication, two independent sets of single nucleotide polymorphism markers for 392 families were used in our study. This deep subject stratification protocol resulted in 16 distinct group-specific datasets for linkage analysis. No locus reached significance for the combined non-stratified coho

SUBMITTER: Talebizadeh Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3694043 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature