The call for research asks investigators to determine the functional significance of any genes or gene variants identified during analysis of larger data sets.
Federal health agencies have teamed up with private organizations and government health agencies in Canada and Ireland to provide funding for research into the genetic basis of susceptibility to autistic spectrum disorders.
The coalition, headed by the National Institute of Mental Health, has made $21 million available to researchers and requested grant applications titled “Identifying Autism Susceptibility Genes.”
Rather than fund the collection of new data sets on autism spectrum disorders, the coalition wants researchers to submit applications that focus on using large data sets of more than 1,000 pedigrees that already have been assembled. These data sets should have adequate statistical power to detect autism susceptibility loci, according to the NIMH.
Studies have located several chromosomal regions associated with autism, but few specific genes have been identified.
The call for more research asks investigators to determine the functional significance of any genes or gene variants that are identified during the analysis of the large data sets.
The identification of new genes or gene variants may help researchers to subdivide the autism spectrum disorders into distinct disorders with different molecular mechanisms.
Some of the grant applications also may address the possibility that not all heritable traits of autism directly involve alterations in the genetic code.
Heritable changes that do not alter the DNA sequence include epigenetic mechanisms such as imprinting, DNA methylation, and changes in chromatin or protein conformations; they could potentially regulate gene expression and play an important etiologic role in the disorder.
The coalition consists of four other institutes in the National Institutes of Health besides the NIMH, as well as the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Health Research Board (Ireland), the Southwest Autism Research and Resource Center, Cure Autism Now, and the National Alliance for Autism Research.
The coalition expects to fund two to three organizations to participate during the 5-year project.
For more information or to request applications, go to http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-MH-05-007.html