ArticleBrain, behavior, and immunity2012
Activating killer-cell immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIR) and their cognate HLA ligands are significantly increased in autism.
Article in Brain, behavior, and immunity, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 40 citations in OpenAlex.
- Changes in peripheral immune cell phenotypes and their roles in autism: insights from clinical and animal model studies.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Review
- The Role of Killer Ig-like Receptors in Diseases from A to Z.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Autism Spectrum Disorder from the Womb to Adulthood: Suggestions for a Paradigm Shift.Journal of personalized medicine · 2021Review
- Expression Changes in Epigenetic Gene Pathways Associated With One-Carbon Nutritional Metabolites in Maternal Blood From Pregnancies Resulting in Autism and Non-Typical Neurodevelopment.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2021Article
- Analyzing the Potential Biological Determinants of Autism Spectrum Disorder: From Neuroinflammation to the Kynurenine Pathway.Brain sciences · 2020Review
- Transcriptome signatures from discordant sibling pairs reveal changes in peripheral blood immune cell composition in Autism Spectrum Disorder.Translational psychiatry · 2020Article
- Phenotypic and Functional Changes in Peripheral Blood Natural Killer Cells in Crohn Disease Patients.Mediators of inflammation · 2020Article
- Brief Report: Low Rates of Herpesvirus Detection in Blood of Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Controls.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2019Article
- Persistence of dysfunctional natural killer cells in adults with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders: stigma/consequence of unresolved early infectious events?Molecular autism · 2019Article
- Inheritance of HLA-Cw7 Associated With Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).Frontiers in psychiatry · 2019Article
- Immune Abnormalities in Autism Spectrum Disorder-Could They Hold Promise for Causative Treatment?Molecular neurobiology · 2018Review
- HLA-class II haplotypes and Autism Spectrum Disorders.Scientific reports · 2018Article
- Autoimmunity, Autoantibodies, and Autism Spectrum Disorder.Biological psychiatry · 2017Review
- Genetic polymorphism and evolutionary differentiation of Eastern Chinese Han: a comprehensive and comparative analysis on KIRs.Scientific reports · 2017Article
- A Killer Immunoglobulin - Like Receptor Gene - Content Haplotype and A Cognate Human Leukocyte Antigen Ligand are Associated with Autism.Autism-open access · 2016Article
- Common Genetic Variants Found in HLA and KIR Immune Genes in Autism Spectrum Disorder.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2016Review
- Paternal HLA-C and Maternal Killer-Cell Immunoglobulin-Like Receptor Genotypes in the Development of Autism.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2016Article
- KIR and HLA under pressure: evidences of coevolution across worldwide populations.Human genetics · 2015Review
- Redox Regulation and the Autistic Spectrum: Role of Tryptophan Catabolites, Immuno-inflammation, Autoimmunity and the Amygdala.Current neuropharmacology · 2014Article
- MHCI requires MEF2 transcription factors to negatively regulate synapse density during development and in disease.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2013Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Killer-cell immunoglobulin-like receptor (KIR) proteins are expressed on natural killer (NK) cells and appear important in innate and adaptive immunity. There are about 14 KIR genes on chromosome 19q13.4, composed of those that inhibit and those that activate NK cell killing. Haplotypes have different combinations of these genes meaning that not all genes are present in a subject. There are two main classes of cognate human leukocyte antigen (HLA) ligands (HLA-Bw4 and HLA-C1/C2) that bind to the inhibitory/activating receptors. As a general rule, the inhibitory state is maintained except when virally infected or tumor cells are encountered; however, both increased activation and inhibition states have been associated with susceptibility and protection against numerous disease states including cancer, arthritis, and psoriasis. Utilizing DNA from 158 Caucasian subjects with autism and 176 KIR control subjects we show for the first time a highly significant increase in four activating KIR genes (2DS5, 3DS1, 2DS1 and 2DS4) as measured by chi square values and odds ratios. In addition, our data suggests a highly significant increase in the activating KIR gene 2DS1 and its cognate HLA-C2 ligand (2DS1+C2; p = 0.00003 [Odds ratio = 2.87]). This information ties together two major immune gene complexes, the human leukocyte complex and the leukocyte receptor complex, and may partially explain immune abnormalities observed in many subjects with autism.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.