GEL team members working on the project: Dr Meaburn, Professor Ronald

Collaborators: Prof Frank Dudbridge, Dr Ayden Saffari, Dr Matt Arno, Dr Leonard Schalkwyk, Prof Jo Mill, Dr Chloe Wong, Prof Robert Plomin

Funded by a Bloomsbury Colleges PhD Studentship and a Royal Society grant

The Project

This project used a discordant identical twin design to ask how non-shared environmental effects converge at the molecular level to contribute to autism symptoms.  We compared genome-wide DNA methylation (27k array) and gene expression (RNAseq) profiles in autism discordant and concordant identical twins to identify molecular differences associated with autism that are due to non-genetic effects.   

Publications

Ayden Saffari, Matt Arno, Angelica Ronald, Chloe Wong, Leonard Schalkwyk, Jonathan Mill, Frank Dudbridge, Emma L. Meaburn. RNA sequencing of identical twins discordant for autism reveals blood-based signatures implicating immune and transcriptional dysregulation. Molecular Autism In Press

Wong, C.C.Y., Meaburn, E.L Ronald, A., Price, T.S., Jeffries, A.R., Schalkwyk, L.C.,  Plomin, R., Mill, J. (2013) Methylomic Analysis of Monozygotic Twins Discordant for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Related Behavioural Traits. Molecular Psychiatry. Apr 23.