Finding specific genes that cause autism: a combination of approaches will be needed to maximize power
S E Folstein1, E Bisson, S L Santangelo
1Department of Psychiatry, New England Medical Center, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Abstract:
Although autism is clearly inherited, it may be challenging to find the genes involved: The mechanism of inheritance is unknown, families with an autistic child are usually small, parent-child pairs are rare, and a fairly large number of genes may be involved, some or all of which may have a small effect on the phenotype. We discuss several strategies for finding genes, all of which may be used in combination to find the relevant genes.
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