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Autism Genetic Scores Vary by Ancestry
26 Aug
Summary
- Autism genetic risk scores perform less accurately for non-European ancestries.
- Research analyzed over 18,000 autism case-parent families.
- Diverse and larger autism studies are needed for equitable tools.
Scientists have uncovered significant disparities in the effectiveness of genetic tools used to assess autism risk. A study of over 18,000 autism case-parent families found that polygenic scores, designed to estimate inherited autism risk, showed strong associations in European ancestry groups but diminished in predictive power for those with greater genetic distance from this population.
The research, published in Nature Genetics, highlights a clear linear relationship: the further an individual's ancestry is from the population used to develop the risk score, the less accurate that score becomes. This finding underscores a critical gap in current genetic assessment tools.
While inherited autism-related genetic variants contribute to ASD risk across populations, improving the accuracy of these tools for diverse groups requires more inclusive research. Lead author Ziqiao Wang stated that larger and more varied autism studies are essential to ensure genetic tools benefit all populations equally. The science is not yet ready for clinical use in predicting autism in individual children.
