It is not the age of the mother that causes autism, Sperm mutations are the key, older maternal grandfathers may be to blame.

CORRECTION: DR. WIGER DID NOT SAY IN HIS PAPER ON A UNIFIED THEORY OF AUTISM OR IN THE PRESS RELEASE FROM CSHL THAT OLDER EGGS ARE THE SOURCE OF THE MUATIONS THAT CAUSE SPORADIC AUTISM. I have tried to remove all my assertions that Dr. Wigler was blaming autism on older women's eggs. I do still have the quote from "Nature" on this blog. Newsday's piece did not contain the assertion about egg versus sperm.

But this article does: Study: Autism linked to genetic mutations, mother's age

Scientists say variants in DNA are key, call for federal research 11:30 PM CDT on Wednesday, August 15, 2007



Thank you, Dr. Ye for the correction and letting me know that I am wrong. Dr. Wigler did not in his PNAS paper point to the age of the mother's eggs as the cause of the spontaneous mutations that underlie much non-familial autism. I assumed, incorrectly that Dr. Wigler did speak with "Nature" and did say what was attributed to him. Yes, no other publication contains this quote. People can be misquoted and led in a direction in a interview that the interviewer wants to take.

"Older mothers, who are more likely to have autistic children, could fall into this class, notes Wigler. Such mothers' eggs have had more time to accumulate mutations."
New mutations implicated in half of autism cases
Heidi Ledford

SUMMARY: Disorder linked to genetic differences between parent and offspring.

CONTEXT: ...Michael Wigler, a geneticist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York and a lead author on the study, says that the study probably missed some copy-number mutations. "We were sure that 10% was an underestimate," he says. So...

News@Nature (23 Jul 2007) News



The way I read about the PNAS paper was through a Nature Alert. I do apologize to Dr. Wigler for assuming he meant for his paper to be interpreted this way. This quote which was attributed to Dr. Wigler came from a woman who wrote a blog attached to "NATURE". http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070723/full/070723-1.html

New mutations implicated in half of autism cases Disorder linked to genetic differences between parent and offspring.24 July 2007

I do realize that the micro array assays make it very difficult to see germ-line CNVs in sperm stem cells and sperm. Direct evidence of mutations in spermatagonia and sperm are technologically very difficult. Point mutations and deletions can be seen with some technologies.


Yes, I do note that Dr. Wigler and CSHL did not write that older eggs may be the cause of sporadic autism and the statement only appeared in the "NATURE" blog and now in the Dallas Morning News attributed to Newswire services.

.

I am responding to this comment:
At 12:46 PM, Kenny Ye said...
I cannot help responding to this groundless (and almost personal) attack against Dr. Wigler, which not only questions the scientific integrity of a world-class scientist, but also further MISLEAD your readers to misunderstand the results published on PNAS.If you read the PNAS paper, you will find not even a slightest hint suggesting old eggs are more to be blamed than sperms. I guess that your drew your conclusion from the Newsday report. If so, the misunderstanding of the reporter is to be blamed but not Dr. Wigler. If you read other reports covering the same work, including the official press release from CSHL, you can clearly see that NOBODY on purposely MISLEAD. Although it has little to do with what reported in the PNAS paper, I would like to comment that there has been little direct DNA evidence to support the speculations that germ-line mutation are more prevalent in old eggs or sperms. We would've report on the source of de novo mutation found in autistic cases, if our technology could tell. Further experiments can determine the sources but it will take considerable effort. Eventually we will all know. But now I can care less about the source of those mutations than where are those mutations. If you stand by what you said in your blog, please email me with your real identity by so that we can have a civil and open discussion. Or, I would like to see some corrections and apologies being offerred on your blog.