An example of research on the transcriptional mechanisms of CNS development and its developmental disorders is a recent study (Ziats & Rennert, 2011) of the genomic etiology of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), which was carried out based on data from the transcriptional atlas of human brain development (http://www.brainspan.org). The research was based on the hypothesis that the main molecular mechanisms underlying such a heterogenic developmental disorder as autism might be more clearly detectible if focused on the interaction networks of the genes known to be implicated in ASD and expressed in the developing brain. The authors identified such genes and described the gene ontologies, canonical pathways, and interactome networks for these genes. A particular focus on a subset of the candidate-genes that are highly expressed in the normal developing brain have shown that immune signaling, particularly the classical cytokine signaling pathway, which occurs via small cell-signaling protein molecules and is prevalent in intracellular communication, is central to ASD networks. Additionally the correlating ASD-implicated transcriptomes with cell-type specific protein expression provided evidence on the significance of considering cell-type specific expression in
