Genetic Variation and Autism: A Field Synopsis and Systematic Meta-Analysis

Abstract

This study aimed to verify noteworthy findings between genetic risk factors and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) by employing the false positive report probability (FPRP) and the Bayesian false-discovery probability (BFDP). PubMed and the Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) catalog were searched from inception to 1 August, 2019. We included meta-analyses on genetic factors of ASD of any study design. Overall, twenty-seven meta-analyses articles from literature searches, and four manually added articles from the GWAS catalog were re-analyzed. This showed that five of 31 comparisons for meta-analyses of observational studies, 40 out of 203 comparisons for the GWAS meta-analyses, and 18 out of 20 comparisons for the GWAS catalog, respectively, had noteworthy estimations under both Bayesian approaches. In this study, we found noteworthy genetic comparisons highly related to an increased risk of ASD. Multiple genetic comparisons were shown to be associated with ASD risk; however, genuine associations should be carefully verified and understood.

Gene polymorphism association studies in cluster headache: A field synopsis and systematic meta‐analyses

“…However, these genetic associations did not remain noteworthy after multiple testing correction by BFDP, indicating that these two SNP associations cannot be regarded as robust and conclusive. Similarly, our reanalysis via BFDP of the SNPs discovered in the unique GWAS conducted on patients with CH 41 revealed no noteworthy SNPs at a prior probability of 10 −6 , which is commonly used to test the credibility of SNP associations from GWASs and meta‐analyses of GWASs 50,51 . However, it should be noted that the GWAS of Bacchelli et al 41 included only 99 patients with CH, which is very small in a GWAS setting.…”

“…Similarly, our reanalysis via BFDP of the SNPs discovered in the unique GWAS conducted on patients with CH 41 revealed no noteworthy SNPs at a prior probability of 10 −6 , which is commonly used to test the credibility of SNP associations from GWASs and meta-analyses of GWASs. 50,51 However, it should be noted that the GWAS of Bacchelli et al 41 included only 99 patients with CH, which is very small in a GWAS setting. In addition, the subsequent larger replication study of Ran et al, 43 which enrolled a larger cohort of patients with CH (n = 542), found no association of the two most significant SNPs identified in the GWAS with CH susceptibility, a result that provides further evidence of false-positive results of GWAS findings.…”

Autism spectrum disorder and air pollution: A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Most often, etiologies of ASD remain unknown. Although, genetic susceptibility has been highlighted as a risk factor 86 . No included studies in our meta-analysis indicated genetic susceptibility.…”

The Challenging Heterogeneity of Autism: Editorial for Brain Sciences Special Issue “Advances in Autism Research”

“…The study of Panerai and colleagues [18] was aimed to better understand the relationship between sensory and feeding problems in ASD by comparing the sensory responsiveness of ASD children with (ASD-W) and without (ASD-WO) feeding problems. Both groups showed strengths in Visual/Auditory sensitivity, Low-Energy/Weak, and Movement sensitivity, again more marked in ASD-WO.…”