Dysregulation of immune and metabolism pathways in maternal immune activation induces an increased risk of autism spectrum disorders.

AIMS:Maternal immune activation (MIA) via infection during pregnancy is known to be an environmental risk factor for neurodevelopmental disorders and the development of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in the offspring, but it still remains elusive that the molecular relevance between infection-induced abnormal neurodevelopmental events and an increased risk for ASD development. MAIN METHODS:Fully considering the extremely high genetic heterogeneity of ASD and the universality of risk-gene with minimal effect-sizes, the gene and pathway-based association analysis was performed with the transcriptomic and DNA methylation landscapes of temporal human embryonic brain development and ASD, and the time-course transcriptional profiling of MIA. We conducted the transcriptional profiling of mouse abnormal neurodevelopment two days following induced MIA via LPS injection at E10.5. KEY FINDINGS:A novel evidence was proved that illustrated altering four immune and metabolism-related risk pathways, including starch and sucrose metabolism, ribosome, protein processing in endoplasmic reticulum, and retrograde endocannabinoid signaling pathway, which were prominent involvement in the process of MIA regulating abnormal fetal brain development to induce an increased risk of ASD. Here, we have observed that almost all key genes within these risk pathways are significantly differentially expressed at embryonic days (E) 10.5-12.5, which is considered to be the optimal coincidence window of mouse embryonic brain development to study the intimate association between MIA and ASD using mouse animal models. SIGNIFICANCE:There search establishes that MIA causes dysregulation of immune and metabolic pathways, which leads to abnormal embryonic neurodevelopment, thus promoting development of ASD symptoms in offspring.