Vilela, JoanaMartiniano, HugoMarques, Ana RitaSantos, João XavierRasga, CéliaOliveira, GuiomarVicente, Astrid Moura2026-03-042026-03-042025-05-27http://hdl.handle.net/10400.18/11154Maria: Adicionado palavra chave: Brain Diseases e Genetic SimilaratyBackground: A range of brain disorders are comorbid with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), such as Epilepsy, Intellectual disability or Anxiety. Previous evidence suggested a shared genetic influence between ASD and several brain disorders. In this study, we sought to further substantiate the genetic similarity between ASD and a set of comorbid brain disorders. Methods: We constructed a network of 29 brain disorders based on their genetic similarity, estimated from the Jaccard coefficient between disease pairs. The Leiden algorithm was used to identify network disease communities. In 3,881 ASD cases from a whole-genome sequencing dataset, we further searched for de novo loss-of-function (LoF) Single Nucleotide Variants (SNVs) in genes shared by the disease communities. Results: Through network analysis we identified three disease communities, including a heterogeneous community that is genetically more similar to ASD, and that also includes Epilepsy, Bipolar Disorder, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder combined type, and some disorders in the Schizophrenia Spectrum. Several of the genes shared by diseases communities are strong ASD candidate genes, such as SHANK3, SCN2A, ASH1L or CHD2, and harbour the highest number of rare de novo LoF SNVs in ASD patients. Conclusion: This study provided further evidence for a shared genetic architecture between ASD and several other brain disorders, including some frequent comorbidities of ASD. It also showed that ASD patients have rare de novo LoF variants in genes associated with frequent comorbid disorders, and identified genes that overlap between brain disease communities.engAutism SpectrumComorbid Brain DisordersDoenças Cardio e Cérebro-vascularesBrain DiseasesGenetic SimilarityPerturbações do Desenvolvimento Infantil e Saúde Mentalconference object