Umut Yücel1, İrem Kahramanoğlu1, İlknur Altuntaş1, Oytun Erbaş1,2

1Institute of Experimental Medicine, Gebze-Kocaeli, Turkey
2Department of Physiology, Medical Faculty of Demiroğlu Bilim University, Istanbul, Turkey

Keywords: Autism spectrum disorders, electron transport chain, genetic mutations, mitochondrial dysfunction

Abstract

There are certain aspects of autism spectrum disorder that seem to be related to the pathogenesis of mitochondrial dysfunction or the chain of events and pathways associated with mitochondrial dysfunction. In this mini-review article, we aimed to summarize these two entities separately and review how they are linked to oxidative stress pathways, genetic abnormalities, transcriptional factor changes, metabolic disorders, changes in the enteric composition of the microbiota, gene expression, and regional alterations in regulatory proteins. Some ideas on how these new findings of the current link may affect therapeutic approaches were also discussed.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declared no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship and/or publication of this article.

Financial Disclosure

The authors received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article.