AUTISM AND GENETICS - CLINICAL APPROACH AND ASSOCIATION STUDY WITH 2 MARKERS OF HRAS GENE

Twin studies and familial aggregation studies indicate that genetic fa ctors could play a role in infantile autism. In an earlier study, we i dentified a possible positive association between autism and a c-Harve y-ras (HRAS) oncogene marker at the 3' end of the coding region, In an attempt to confirm this finding, we studied a larger population, well -characterized clinically and genetically, We report a positive associ ation between autism and two HRAS markers, the 3' marker used in the i nitial study and an additional marker in exon 1. (C) 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.