Identification of candidate intergenic risk loci in autism spectrum disorder

BACKGROUND: Copy number variations (CNVs) and DNA sequence alterations affecting specific neuronal genes are established risk factors for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). In what is largely considered a genetic condition, so far, these mutations account for ~20% of individuals having an ASD diagnosis. However, non-coding genomic sequence also contains functional elements introducing additional disease risk loci for investigation. RESULTS: We have performed genome-wide analyses and identified rare inherited CNVs affecting non-genic intervals in 41 of 1491 (3%) of ASD cases examined. Examples of such intergenic CNV regions include 16q21 and 2p16.3 near known ASD risk genes CDH8 and NRXN1 respectively, as well as novel loci contiguous with ZHX2, MOCS1, LRRC4C, SEMA3C, and other genes. CONCLUSIONS: Rare variants in intergenic regions may implicate new risk loci and genes in ASD and also present useful data for comparison with coming whole genome sequence datasets.