Potential Autism Trigger Found in Brain Growth Enzymes

Julia Rowland
October 20th, 2013

Published: August 28, 2013
URL: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/potential-autism-trigger-found-in-brain-growth-enzymes.html

Potential Autism Trigger Found in Brain Growth Enzymes

Summary: In many cases autism is related to damage in a very important set of enzymes, which help the brain develop and grow. Professor Mark Zylka said that there are enzymes in the brain called topoisomerases that work a lot like scissors and glue, when brain cells are being duplicated. Studies have shown in the past that mutations in these enzymes were linked with some patients with autism. The study shows what can happen if these enzymes are impaired. Zylka said that many of these enzymes are necessary for these long genes to function correctly including dozens of those genes that have gone askew for patients with autism. The researchers inhibited the enzymes, by using a generic cancer medicine they found adequately lulls about 50 genes linked to autism.

Connection: This article about autism trigger that is found in enzymes connect to what we have been doing in class for a while now, because we learned a lot about enzymes and what types of effects they can have on different things. In particular for this enzyme, it becomes mutated and impaired, so that it can no longer fit in its active site, and no longer does what it needs to do, sometimes resulting in autism because the genes go awry do to the impaired enzyme.