Circadian clock crosstalks with autism

BackgroundThe mechanism underlying autism spectrum disorder (ASD) remains incompletely understood, but researchers have identified over a thousand genes involved in complex interactions within the brain, nervous, and immune systems, particularly during the mechanism of brain development. Various contributory environmental effects including circadian rhythm have also been studied in ASD. Thus, capturing the global picture of the ASD-clock network in combined form is critical.MethodsWe reconstructed the protein-protein interaction network of ASD and circadian rhythm to understand the connection between autism and the circadian clock. A graph theoretical study is undertaken to evaluate whether the network attributes are biologically realistic. The gene ontology enrichment analyses provide information about the most important biological processes.ResultsThis study takes a fresh look at metabolic mechanisms and the identification of potential key proteins/pathways (ribosome biogenesis, oxidative stress, insulin/IGF pathway, Wnt pathway, and mTOR pathway), as well as the effects of specific conditions (such as maternal stress or disruption of circadian rhythm) on the development of ASD due to environmental factors.ConclusionUnderstanding the relationship between circadian rhythm and ASD provides insight into the involvement of these essential pathways in the pathogenesis/etiology of ASD, as well as potential early intervention options and chronotherapeutic strategies for treating or preventing the neurodevelopmental disorder. This study highlights the relationship between autism and the circadian clock using a five-step approach: 1. Collection of Protein-Protein Interaction (PPI) Data, 2. Reconstruction of autism, circadian and combined circadian-autism Protein-Protein Interaction Networks (PPINs), 3. Conducting topological analysis and Gene Ontology enrichment analysis, 4. Conducting network decompositon analysis, and 5. Analyzing the results regarding the connection between autism and the circadian clock, providing insights for future chronotherapeutic strategies. image

Automated summary

This study reconstructs the protein-protein interaction network of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and circadian rhythm to understand their connection. Graph theoretical analysis is used to evaluate the network attributes, and gene ontology enrichment analysis provides information about important biological processes.