Research Article

B-Lymphocytes from a Population of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Their Unaffected Siblings Exhibit Hypersensitivity to Thimerosal

Figure 3

This figure shows two methods to estimate the size of the thimerosal sensitive population, by using a pseudo-Jackknife statistical procedure (a) and by simulation (b). In (a) the ranked data set shown in Figure 2 was treated as a bimodal population. We calculate the mean and standard deviation where the size of the hypersensitive population, n, was increased from 0 to 44 and the bulk population fell from 44 to 0. The ratios of the two SDs divided by their means were plotted against n. The dashed line is the ratio of the SD/mean of the control population. The insert shows the line-shape generated when the two ratios are plotted against each other. This pseudo-Jackknifing procedure indicates that the size of the hypersensitive population is at least 8 and could be as high as 11. The ranked data were also fitted by simulation to two populations with means of 380 and 100 nM, respectively. The simulations indicated that the two populations had the same population distribution when n was 9, (b).
801517.fig.003a
(a)
801517.fig.003b
(b)