

Idiopathic cases of ASD are a little more complicated than the above-mentioned syndromic cases. Idiopathic cases of ASD have no known underlying cause for the disorder. Nonetheless, researchers have begun attempts to unpick the epigenetic signature unique to individuals with an idiopathic ASD diagnosis. In a recent meta-analysis of peripheral blood samples, epigenome-wide investigations pinpointed 55 differentially methylated sites that were associated with ASD[6]. Corroborating this, an investigation with identical twin pairs identified numerous differentially methylated regions associated between people with and without an ASD diagnosis, as well as between twin pairs discordant for ASD-related traits. Not only this, but the regions found to be differentially methylated were often those housing genes associated with ASD[7].
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