According to the Autism Society, more than 3.5 million Americans live with an ASD, a complex neurodevelopmental disorder. Fragile X Syndrome (“FXS”) is the most common identifiable single-gene cause of autism, affecting approximately 1.4 in every 10,000 males and 0.9 in every 10,000 females, according to the CDC. Individuals with FXS and ASD exhibit a range of abnormal behaviors comprising hyperactivity and attention problems, executive function and cognitive deficits, hyper-reactivity to stimuli, anxiety and mood instability. Also, according the Autism Society, the prevalence rate of ASD has risen from 1 in 150 children in 2000 to 1 in 68 children in 2010, with current estimates indicating a significant rise in ASD diagnosis to 1 in 59 births, placing a significant emotional and economic burden on families and educational systems. The Autism Society estimates the economic cost to U.S. citizens of autism services to be between $236 and $262 billion annually.
Since “autistic disturbances” were first identified in children in 1943, extensive research efforts have attempted to identify the genetic, molecular, environmental, and clinical causes of ASD, but until recently the underlying etiology of the disorder remained elusive. Today, there are no medications that can treat ASD or its core symptoms, and only two anti-psychotic drugs, aripiprazole (tradenames, Abilify, Abilify Maintena, Aristada) and risperidone (trade names, Risperdal, Risperdal Consta, Risperdal M-Tab), are approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) for the treatment of irritability associated with ASD. While some treatments such as FMT have shown promising signs of symptom improvement (source: fmt autism), it is relatively unknown yet whether FMT could provide a long-term, viable, cure or solution to maintain the condition.
Thanks to wide ranging translational research efforts, FXS and ASD are currently recognized as disorders of the synapse with alterations in different forms of synaptic communication and neuronal network connectivity. Focusing on the proteins and subunits of the AMPA receptor complex, autism researchers at the University of San Diego (“UCSD”) have proposed that AMPA receptor malfunction and disrupted glutamate signal transmission may play an etiologic role in the behavioral, emotional and neurocognitive phenotypes that remain the standard for ASD diagnosis. For example, stargazin, also known as CACNG2 (Ca2+ channel γ2 subunit), is one of four closely related proteins recently categorized as transmembrane AMPA receptor regulating proteins (“TARPs”).
Researchers at UCSD have been studying genetic mutations in the AMPA receptor complex that lead to cognitive and functional deficiencies along the autism spectrum. They work with patients and their families to conduct detailed genetic analyses in order to better understand the underlying mechanisms of autism. In one case, they have been working with a teenage patient who has an autism diagnosis, with a phenotype that is characterized by subtle Tourette-like behaviors, extreme aggression, and verbal and physical outbursts with disordered thought. Despite the behaviors, his language is normal. Using next generation sequencing and genome editing technologies, the researchers identified a specific mutation in stargazin that alters the configuration and kinetics of the AMPA receptor. When the aberrant sequence was introduced into C57bL6 mice using CRISPR (Clustered Regulatory Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats), the heterozygous allele had a dominant negative effect on the trafficking of post-synaptic AMPA receptors and produced behaviors consistent with a glutamatergic deficit and similar to what has been observed in the teenage patient.