Disruption of human-specific synaptogenesis program in autism [RNA-seq]

To test the connection between the molecular mechanisms underlying autistic disorder and human cognitive evolution, we analyzed the gene expression changes taking place during prefrontal cortex development in autism patients and healthy controls, as well as non-human primates. We found the genes with expression changes in autism are significantly overlapped with genes showing human-specific developmental profile. A major pattern of the overlapped genes reflects the aberrant acceleration of synaptogenesis and synaptic maturation followed by premature synaptic pruning in the prefrontal cortex of autism patients. This pattern involves the same developmental program that controls human-specific extension of cortical synaptogenesis in healthy individuals. Taken together, these findings shed light on the molecular mechanisms underlying autistic phenotype and provide potential targets for clinical intervention. Compare the gene expression change in autism and the gene expression specificly changed in human.