Researchers have established the protein p53 as critical for regulating sociability, repetitive behavior, and hippocampus-related learning and memory in mice, illuminating the relationship between the protein-coding gene TP53 and neurodevelopmental and conditions like autism spectrum disorder.
“This study shows for the first time that p53 is linked directly to autism-like behavior,” said Nien-Pei Tsai, an associate professor of molecular and integrative biology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a researcher at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology.
In living systems, genes act as a biological version of binary code, using the letters A, C, G, and T instead of ones and zeroes to spell out cellular marching orders. Some genes — called coding genes — instruct cells to create proteins with specific functions. For example, the gene TP53 instructs…
