IT'S no carbon copy. Macaque monkeys in Shanghai have been genetically engineered to display autism-like behaviour. Compared with other macaques, they spend less time interacting with other monkeys, and become more anxious when people come into their cages.
These monkeys have extra copies of a gene called MECP2, which makes a protein, MECP2, crucial for the nervous system. People who have extra copies of this gene are sometimes diagnosed as autistic and also have severe intellectual disabilities.
Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Neuroscience in Shanghai found that monkeys with this extra MECP2 spend less time grooming each other and have a habit of running in circles (Nature, doi.org/bb3k).
Zilong Qiu and his team believe that imaging the brains of these monkeys may help us identify brain circuits that are important in autism.
“The fact that we don't understand the circuitry that underlies the behavioural problems [of autism] is one of the biggest limitations at the moment,” says Matthew Anderson at Harvard University.
Although the monkeys don't show intellectual disability or seizures – two consequences of MECP2 duplication in humans – Anderson says they could be a step towards more sophisticated monkey models of autism.
I don't think creating an animal based on a genetic anomaly tells you anything about autism
But others are not convinced that animals can provide realistic models for a condition so tied to human social behaviour. Many studies of autism-linked genes in animals like mice have focused on repetitive movements, but this behaviour is uncommon in children who have autism, says David Skuse at University College London.
“The question is: if you create an animal model based on a human genetic anomaly, what does that tell you about autism in general? I don't think it necessarily tells you anything.”
This article appeared in print under the headline “Transgenic monkeys to probe autism?”