Evolutionary constraint genes implicated in autism spectrum disorder across 2,054 nonhuman primate genomes
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Background Significant progress has been made in elucidating the genetic underpinning of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). This childhood-onset chronic disorder of cognition, communication and behaviour ranks among the most severe from a public health perspective, and it is therefore hoped that new discoveries will lead to better therapeutic options. However, there are still significant gaps in our understanding of the link between genomics, neurobiology and clinical phenotype in scientific discovery. New models are therefore needed to address these gaps. Rhesus macaques ( Macaca mulatta ) have been extensively used for preclinical neurobiological research because of remarkable similarities to humans across biology and behaviour that cannot be captured by other experimental animals. Methods We used the macaque Genotype and Phenotype (mGAP) resource (v2.0) consisting of 2,054 macaque genomes to examine patterns of evolutionary constraint in known human neurodevelopmental genes. Residual variation intolerance scores (RVIS) were calculated for all annotated autosomal genes (N = 18,168) and Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) was used to examine patterns of constraint across ASD genes and related neurodevelopmental genes. Results We demonstrated that patterns of constraint across autosomal genes are correlated in humans and macaques, and that ASD-implicated genes exhibit significant constraint in macaques ( p = 9.4 x 10 -27 ). Among macaques, many key ASD genes were observed to harbour predicted damaging mutations. A small number of key ASD genes that are highly intolerant to mutation in humans, however, showed no evidence of similar intolerance in macaques ( CACNA1D , CNTNAP2 , MBD5 , AUTS2 and NRXN1 ). Constraint was also observed across genes implicated in intellectual disability ( p = 1.1 x 10 -46 ), epilepsy ( p = 2.1 x 10 -33 ) and schizophrenia ( p = 4.2 x 10 -45 ), and for an overlapping neurodevelopmental gene set ( p = 4.0 x 10 -10 ) Limitations The lack of behavioural phenotypes among the macaques whose genotypes were studied means that we are unable to further investigate whether genetic variants have similar phenotypic consequences among nonhuman primates. Conclusion The presence of pathological mutations in ASD genes among macaques, and the evidence of similar constraints in these genes to humans, provide a strong rationale for further investigation of genotype-phenotype relationships in nonhuman primates. This highlights the importance of identifying phenotypic behaviours associated with clinical symptoms, elucidating the neurobiological underpinnings of ASD, and developing primate models for translational research to advance approaches for precision medicine and therapeutic interventions.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".