Dysregulation of any of these candidates may affect crucial brain processes since many of them interact with genes already included in our original seed list for autism (APP, CYP19A1, ESR1, MAPK1, SETD2, SHANK2, TRPV1), some of them being highly interconnected nodes within the network (ESR1, APP, MAPK1). This evidence concerns the gene SHANK2 and autism.