Discover "clues" that can fundamentally treat autism spectrum disorder

The team of Professor Kim Min-sik of DGIST's Department of New Biology successfully identified cell-specific molecular networks
for autism spectrum disorders.
This is expected to lay the groundwork
for treatment of autism spectrum disorder.

Autism spectrum disorder is known to occur in early childhood and is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by persistent impairment of social communication and interaction-related behaviors, resulting in limited patterns of behavior, interests, and range of activities, as well as repetitive behaviors
.
Most people with autism spectrum disorder have behavioral disorders and sometimes other developmental disorders
.
Currently, due to the lack of accurate molecular diagnostic methods, early diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder is late and there is no suitable treatment
.

Professor Kim Min-sik's team extracted prefrontal cortex tissue using the Cntnap2 deficient model, a spectral disorder mouse model established by the team of Professor Lee Yong-Seok of Seoul National University School of Medicine, and performed comprehensive quantitative proteomic and metabolomic analysis
based on mass spectrometry.
In addition, by comparing and analyzing with the previously reported big data of people with autism spectrum disorder, the team confirmed that problems
arose in networks such as metabolism and synapses of excitable neurons.

Kim Min-sik, professor in the Department of New Biology, said: "The multiomics synthesis analysis technique developed through this study advances the understanding of pathology of autism spectrum disorder and enables the discovery of comprehensive networks from molecular-level cell differentiation induced by specific autism genes to biometric information
.
We are trying to find the core network of autism spectrum disorder and discover therapeutic targets through comprehensive analysis of various models
.
”

Meanwhile, the results of this study were published in Molecular Psychiatry on October 17, 2022, supported by the Brain Science Source Technology Development Project of the Ministry of Science and ICT
.