Researchers studying two seemingly unrelated conditions – autism and cancer – have unexpectedly converged on a surprising discovery. Some people with autism have mutated cancer or tumour genes that apparently caused their brain disorder. Ten per cent of children with mutations in a gene called PTEN, which causes cancers of the breast, colon, thyroid and other organs, have autism. So do about half of children with gene mutations that can lead to some kinds of brain and kidney cancer and large tumours in several organs, including the brain. That is many times the rate of autism in the general population. Read more here.
Study mentioned: He X, Arrotta N, Radhakrishnan D, Wang Y, Romigh T, Eng C. Cowden syndrome-related mutations in PTEN associate with enhanced proteasome activity. Cancer Res. 2013 May 15;73(10):3029-40. doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-12-3811. Epub 2013 Mar 8. PubMed PMID: 23475934; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3655114.
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