MicroRNAs as biomarkers for psychiatric disorders with a focus on autism spectrum disorder: Current progress in genetic association studies, expression profiling, and translational research.
Tiny RNA molecules in blood show early promise as autism flags, but EEG and gut tests are already closing in faster.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Yubin and colleagues scanned every paper they could find on microRNAs and autism.
They pulled studies that measured these tiny RNA molecules in blood, saliva, or brain tissue.
The team then grouped the findings to see if any microRNA patterns kept showing up in kids with ASD.
What they found
Several microRNAs were repeatedly too high or too low in children with autism.
The same signals sometimes appeared in siblings, hinting the markers might run in families.
Still, sample sizes were small and labs used different cut-offs, so no test is ready yet.
How this fits with other research
Cai et al. (2025) pushed the hunt further by showing stool microbes can also flag ASD with 98 % accuracy.
Their gut bugs did not overlap with the blood microRNAs, giving you two separate biological clues.
Ezedinma et al. (2025) added a third angle: a simple 4.5-Hz EEG rhythm picked out kids with an MTHFR gene variant 80 % of the time.
Together these papers extend Yubin’s call for biomarkers by proving non-invasive options—poop and a 5-minute brain wave—already work in small samples.
Why it matters
You can’t order a microRNA panel today, but you can watch the field move fast. Expect combo screens—maybe EEG plus gut microbe plus microRNA—to sharpen diagnosis and help match kids to targeted supports long before traditional tests catch up.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a group of small noncoding RNA molecules, 18-25 nucleotides in length, which can negatively regulate gene expression at the post-transcriptional level by binding to messenger RNAs. About half of all identified miRNAs in humans are expressed in the brain and display regulatory functions important for many biological processes related to the development of the central nervous system (CNS). Disruptions in miRNA biogenesis and miRNA-target interaction have been related to CNS diseases, including psychiatric disorders. In this review, we focus on the role of miRNAs in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and summarize recent findings about ASD-associated genetic variants in miRNA genes, in miRNA biogenesis genes, and miRNA targets. We discuss deregulation of miRNA expression in ASD and functional validation of ASD-related miRNAs in animal models. Including miRNAs in studies of ASD will contribute to our understanding of its etiology and pathogenesis and facilitate the discrimination between different disease subgroups. Autism Res 2017. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Autism Res 2017, 10: 1184-1203. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2017 · doi:10.1002/aur.1789