AUTHOR=Honarmand Tamizkar Kasra , Badrlou Elham , Aslani Termeh , Brand Serge , Arsang-Jang Shahram , Ghafouri-Fard Soudeh , Taheri Mohammad 

TITLE=Dysregulation of NF-κB-Associated LncRNAs in Autism Spectrum Disorder

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience

VOLUME=14

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/molecular-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnmol.2021.747785

DOI=10.3389/fnmol.2021.747785

ISSN=1662-5099

ABSTRACT=<p>Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a long-standing neurodevelopmental condition with prominent effects on social behavior of affected children. This disorder has been linked with neuroinflammatory responses. NF-κB has been shown to affect these responses in the orbitofrontal cortex of patients with ASD, thus being implicated in the pathogenesis of ASD. We measured expression of some NF-κB-associated lncRNAs and mRNAs (<italic>DILC, ANRIL, PACER, CHAST, ADINR, DICER1-AS1, HNF1A-AS1, NKILA, ATG5</italic> and <italic>CEBPA</italic>) in the peripheral blood of ASD kids vs. healthy children. Expression quantities of <italic>ADINR, ANRIL, DILC, NKILA</italic> and <italic>CHAST</italic> were meaningfully higher in ASD cases compared with healthy kids (Posterior Beta = 1.402, <italic>P</italic> value &lt; 0.0001; Posterior Beta = 2.959, <italic>P</italic> value &lt; 0.0001; Posterior Beta = 0.882, <italic>P</italic> value = 0.012; Posterior Beta = 1.461, <italic>P</italic> value &lt; 0.0001; Posterior Beta = 0.541, <italic>P</italic> value = 0.043, respectively). The Bonferroni corrected <italic>P</italic> values for these lncRNAs remained significant except for <italic>CHAST</italic> and <italic>DILC</italic>. Expression levels of other genes were not considerably different between cases and controls. Expressions of <italic>ATG5, DICER-AS1</italic> and <italic>DILC</italic> were correlated with age of ASD patients (<italic>P</italic> &lt; 0.0001). Among ASD cases, the most robust correlation has been detected between <italic>ADINR</italic> and <italic>NKILA</italic> (<italic>r</italic> = 0.87, <italic>P</italic> &lt; 0.0001). Expression of none of genes has been correlated with age of healthy children. Among this group of children, expression levels of <italic>ADINR</italic> and <italic>CHAST</italic> were robustly correlated (<italic>r</italic> = 0.83, <italic>P</italic> &lt; 0.0001). <italic>ANRIL</italic> had the greatest AUC value (AUC = 0.857), thus the best diagnostic power among the assessed genes. <italic>NKILA</italic> ranked the second position in this regard (AUC = 0.757). Thus, NF-κB-associated lncRNAs might partake in the pathogenesis of ASD.</p>