CHD8 and autism: For example, chromatin-related genes, such as CHD8, are thought to help shape regulatory expression networks in the developing brain; and to influence other autism risk/liability genes (Cotney et al., 2015), such as p53, a regulator of apoptosis (Nishiyama et al., 2009), and the Wnt/β-catenin target genes (Lasalle, 2013).