06 May New Metabolic Biomarkers Open Door to Earlier Diagnosis, More Precise and Individualized Treatment of Children at Risk for Autism
MADISON, WI (May 6, 2019): Continued analysis of samples from the Children’s Autism Metabolome Project (CAMP), the most comprehensive clinical study of metabolism in children who has autism spectrum disorder (ASD) conducted to date, has identified three new areas of metabolism that affect the biology of children with ASD. These include biomarkers indicating that altered neurotransmission, energy metabolism, and purine metabolism may be associated with metabotypes (metabolic subtypes) of ASD. Stratifying ASD based on metabotypes both offers an opportunity for earlier identification of children at risk for an ASD diagnosis, as well as a potential strategy for more precise and individualized treatment of some affected children. The addition of these metabotypes to the previously published branch-chain amino acid dysregulation subtypes in the biomarker test panel under development by NeuroPointDX can now help identify approximately 41% of ASD-affected children as early as 18 months of age.
Robert E. Burrier, Ph.D., Chief Operating Officer and Vice President of Research and Development at NeuroPointDX, a sponsor and co-investigator for the CAMP study, presented the new data from the study on May 4 at INSAR 2019.
“Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is biologically and behaviorally heterogeneous and is associated with a diverse array of underlying genetic, metabolic, and environmental factors. Thus, it is unlikely that a single biomarker exists that will detect all autism,” said David G. Amaral, Ph.D., of the University of California – Davis MIND Institute, lead investigator for the CAMP study. “Our aim has been to help generate panels of validated biomarkers that will detect a large proportion of children at risk for ASD and to highlight metabolic pathways that may be targets for therapeutic intervention. The newly disclosed metabotypes discussed at INSAR increase the overall diagnostic sensitivity of the biomarker panel from 17% to 41% of ASD-affected children, when all of the identified metabotypes are combined into the test battery.”
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