17 Feb Could There Be A Salivary Diagnostic Test For Autism?
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Alisa G. Woods, Ph.D., MS Assistant Professor
Biochemistry & Proteomics Group
Department of Chemistry & Biomolecular Science
Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY, 13699
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Woods: Objective assessments for autism are greatly needed in order to understand autism cause and also to diagnose autism. Currently autism is diagnosed based on behavior, despite theories that autism may have a biological cause. We sought to develop a non-invasive biological test for autism, using saliva and mass spectrometry-based proteomics. We found nine statistically significant proteins that were elevated in the saliva of children with autism relative to typically developing controls and three proteins that were significantly decreased or absent.
Medical Research: What should clinicians and patients take away from your report?
Dr. Woods: These results are very promising, but certainly they need to be validated in a larger scale study. Ultimately, these data could form the basis for an autism diagnostic test or help us to understand the causes of autism.
Medical Research: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this study?
Dr. Woods: We need to validate these results in a larger group of individuals, and also to compare our biochemical results with gold-standard autism diagnostic tests, such as the ADOS (autism diagnostic observation schedule).
Citation:
A Pilot Proteomic Analysis of Salivary Biomarkers in Autism Spectrum Disorders
Ngounou Wetie AG1, Wormwood KL, Russell S, Ryan JP, Darie CC, Woods AG.
Autism Res. 2015 Jan 27. doi: 10.1002/aur.1450. [Epub ahead of print]
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Alisa G. Woods, Ph.D., MS Assistant Professor (2015). Could There Be A Salivary Diagnostic Test For Autism? MedicalResearch.com
Last Updated on February 17, 2015 by Marie Benz MD FAAD