• Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.108-117
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• 1994

Twenty nine children with autism and thirty children with mental retardation were examined for association between autism and chromosomal disorders including fragile X. The peripheral blood was cultured in Medium 199 with methotrexate and without methorexate for 70 hours. Thirty metaphase cells in each case were karyotyped in all samples. Chromosomal abnormalities were found in 11 cases(37.9%) of autistic disorder and 10 cases (33.3%) of mental retardation, but in none of fragile(X)(q27.3) from all cases. Chromosomal abnormalities were present on group A, C, D and X in autistic disorder and on group A, B, C, D, E and X in mental retardation. No specific chromosomal region was found in both autistic disorder and mental retardation. Types of chromosomal disorders were only fragile and/or gap but no numerical abnormality was present in all cases. Number of cells which revealed fragile sites were 31 cells(3.6%) out of 870 cells in autistic disorder and 29 cells(3.2%) out of 900 cells in mental retardation Number of cells which revealed gaps were 43 cells(4.9%) out of 870 cells in autistic disorder and 35 cells(3.9%) out of 900 cells in mental retardation. Autistic disorder may not be directly correlated with fragile X but with nonspecific chromosomal breakages from these data.