A few days ago, Jin Cuiyuan, Specially-engaged Associate Researcher of Translational Medicine Research Institute of our university, published a research paper entitled Deviated and Early Unsustainable Stunted Development of Gut Microbiota in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder in the journal Gut (IF=23) as the co-first author, to reveal the development graphs of the deviated gut microbiota in children with autism spectrum disorder for the first time, and to report the development characteristics of gut microbiota in children with autism spectrum disorder based on the world’s largest sample analysis at present.

By analyzing the gut microbiota of 773 children with autism spectrum disorder and 449 age-matched healthy individuals from 25 provinces in China, this study revealed that children with ASD had significantly deviated characteristics of gut microbiota development. These characteristics had significant positive correlation with the core symptoms in children with ASD and the severity of co-morbidity problems. The study also established a microbiota-based cross-age/regional ASD diagnostic model, which performed particularly well in children aged 3-6, suggesting that there is a "sensitive period" or "critical window" in the microbiota structure in early life. All these study achievements provided additional evidence for the close relationship between the gut microbiota and the occurrence and development of autism, and offered important clues for further revealing how the gut microbiota participated in the pathological mechanism of autism through metabolic pathways.

(News Source: Translational Medicine Research Institute)