Disability

Clarifying Connection Between Autism and Microbiome

Multilevel analysis of the gut-brain axis shows molecular and microbial profiles associated with autism spectrum disorder

Published: 2023-06-26 | Updated: 2023-06-27
Author: Simons Foundation | Contact: simonsfoundation.org
Peer Reviewed: Yes | Post Type: Case study
Magazine reference: DOI link to study document
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Synopsis: Future study designs could more effectively take into account the realities of long-term microbiome sampling from autistic individuals. Recently, scientists have zeroed in on a promising new area of ​​focus: the microbiome. This collection of microbes inhabiting the human gut has been shown to play a role in autism, but the mechanics of this link have remained awash in ambiguity. This research, which originated from the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) and involved innovative new analysis of dozens of previously published data sets, aligns with a recent long-term study of autistic people that focused in a microbiome-focused treatment intervention.

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main summary

“Multilevel analysis of the gut-brain axis shows molecular and microbial profiles associated with autism spectrum disorder” – neuroscience of nature.

A reanalysis of previous studies initiated and funded by SFARI reveals consistent biological signals in the human microbiome and other physiological signals associated with autism and highlights the need for long-term studies.

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The biological roots of autism continue to puzzle researchers, despite a growing body of studies analyzing an ever-increasing variety of genetic, cellular, and microbial data.

Recently, scientists have zeroed in on a promising new area of ​​focus: the microbiome. This collection of microbes inhabiting the human gut has been shown to play a role in autism, but the mechanics of this link have remained awash in ambiguity. Taking a new computational approach to the problem, a study published in neuroscience of nature sheds new light on the relationship between the microbiome and autism. This research, which originated from the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) and involved innovative new analysis of dozens of previously published data sets, aligns with a recent long-term study of autistic people that focused in a microbiome-focused treatment intervention. These findings also underline the importance of longitudinal studies to elucidate the interaction between the microbiome and complex conditions such as autism.

“We were able to harmonize seemingly disparate data from different studies and find a common language with which to unite them. With this, we were able to identify a microbial signature that distinguishes autistic from neurotypical individuals across many studies,” says Jamie Morton, one of the co-authors. Corresponding authors of the study, who began this work as postdoctoral researchers at the Simons Foundation and are now independent consultants. “But the most important point is that, going forward, we need robust, long-term studies that look at as many data sets as possible and understand how they change when there is a [therapeutic] intervention.”

With 43 authors, this study brought together leaders in computational biology, engineering, medicine, autism, and the microbiome from institutions in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. “The sheer number of fields and areas of expertise in this large-scale collaboration is remarkable and necessary to get a new and consistent picture of autism,” says Rob Knight, director of the Center for Microbiome Innovation at the University of California, San Francisco. Diego. and co-author of the study.

Autism is inherently complex

Autism is inherently complex, and studies trying to identify the specific gut microbes involved in the condition have been confounded by this complexity.

First, autism presents heterogeneously: autistic individuals differ from one another genetically, physiologically, and behaviorally.

Second, the microbiome presents unique difficulties. Microbiome studies typically simply report the relative proportions of specific microbes, requiring sophisticated statistics to understand which changes in the microbial population are relevant to a condition of interest. This makes it difficult to find the signal among the noise.

To further complicate matters, most studies to date have been single snapshots of the microbial populations present in autistic individuals. “A single point in time is so powerful; it could be very different tomorrow or next week,” says study co-author Brittany Needham, an assistant professor of anatomy, cell biology and physiology at the Indiana University School of Medicine.

“We wanted to address the ever-evolving question of how the microbiome is associated with autism, and we thought, ‘Let’s go back to existing data sets and see how much information we can get from them,'” says the corresponding co-author. Gaspar Taroncher-Oldenburg, director of Therapeutics Alliances at New York University, who began working with Morton while he was SFARI’s resident consultant.

In the new study, the research team developed an algorithm to reanalyze 25 previously published data sets containing microbiome and other “omics” information, such as gene expression, immune system response, and diet, from both autistic cohorts. as neurotypical. Within each data set, the algorithm found the best pairs of autistic and neurotypical individuals in terms of age and gender, two factors that can often confound autism studies.

“Instead of comparing average cohort results within studies, we treated each pair as a single data point and were thus able to simultaneously analyze more than 600 ASD control pairs corresponding to a de facto cohort of more than 1,200 children,” says Taroncher-Oldenburg. “From a technical point of view, this required the development of novel computational methodologies together,” she adds.

Their new computational approach allowed them to reliably identify microbes that have different abundances between individuals with ASD and neurotypicals.

To the researchers’ surprise, their analysis identified autism-specific metabolic pathways associated with particular human gut microbes. Importantly, these pathways were also observed elsewhere in autistic individuals, from their brain-associated gene expression profiles to their diets.

“We have not seen this type of clear overlap between human and gut microbial metabolic pathways in autism before,” says Morton.

Even more striking was an overlap between the microbes associated with autism and those identified in a recent long-term fecal microbiota transplant study led by James Adams and Rosa Krajmalnik-Brown at the Center for Biodesign for Health through Microbiomes at Arizona State University.

“Another set of eyes looked at this, from a different perspective, and validated our findings,” says Krajmalnik-Brown, who was not involved in the study.

“What is significant about this work is not only the identification of major signatures, but also the computational analysis that identified the need for future studies to include carefully designed longitudinal measurements and controls to allow for robust interpretation,” says Kelsey Martin, Executive Vice President from SFARI and the Simons Foundation Neuroscience Collaborations, who was not involved in the study.

“In the future, we need more long-term studies involving interventions, so we can get to cause and effect,” Morton says.

Citing compliance issues often faced by traditional long-term studies, Taroncher-Oldenburg suggests that study designs could more effectively take into account the realities of long-term microbiome sampling of autistic people.

“Practical and clinical constraints should inform the statistics, and that will inform the study design,” he says.

In addition, he points out that long-term studies can reveal information about the group and the individual, as well as how that individual responds to specific interventions over time.

Researchers say these findings go beyond autism

The approach established here could also be employed in other areas of biomedicine that have long proven challenging.

“Before this, we had smoke indicating that the microbiome was involved in autism, and now we have fire. We can apply this approach to many other areas, from depression to Parkinson’s to cancer, where we think the microbiome plays a role.” , but where I still don’t know exactly what the role is,” says Knight.

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Attribution/Source(s):

This peer-reviewed case study article related to our autism information section was selected for publication by the editors of Disabled World because of its likely interest to readers in our community of people with disabilities. Although the content may have been edited for style, clarity, or length, the article “Unlocking the connection between autism and the microbiome” was originally written by the Simons Foundation and published by Disabled-World.com on 2023-06-26 (Updated: 2023-06-27). If you require further information or clarification, you may contact the Simons Foundation at simonsfoundation.org. Disabled World makes no warranties or representations in connection therewith.

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Clarifying the connection between autism and the microbiome

Cite this page (APA):
Simons Foundation. (2023, June 26). Unraveling the connection between autism and the microbiome. disabled world. Retrieved June 27, 2023 from www.disabled-world.com/health/neurology/autism/autism-microbiome.php


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