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. 2019 Jan;49(1):410-414.
doi: 10.1007/s10803-018-3691-x.

Brief Report: Low Rates of Herpesvirus Detection in Blood of Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Controls

Thayne L Sweeten  1 , Lisa A Croen  2 , Gayle C Windham  3 , J Dennis Odell  4 , E Gene Stubbs  5 , Anthony R Torres  4
Affiliations

Brief Report: Low Rates of Herpesvirus Detection in Blood of Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Controls

Thayne L Sweeten et al. J Autism Dev Disord. 2019 Jan.

Abstract

Previous research indicates that infection, especially from viruses in the family Herpesviridae, may play a role in the etiology of some cases of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Using a case-control design and the polymerase chain reaction with site-specific primers, we screened newborn and childhood blood samples for the presence of eight human herpesviruses. Herpesvirus DNA was detected in 4 of 225 ASD individuals and 2 of 235 controls, with the most frequently detected virus being HHV-6B. Although this study does not detect a significant ASD-Herpesviridae association, it is limited by the use of site-specific primers. We suggest that new techniques using bioinformatics to search next-generation sequencing databases will be more revealing of possible ASD-virus associations.

Keywords: Autism; Autism spectrum disorder; HHV-6; Herpesvirus.

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