Some recurrent miscarriages may have genetic cause

sad couple embraces

New research identifies a genetic cause for a patient’s recurrent pregnancy loss, 16 miscarriages and no full-term pregnancies over a 15-year period.

Recurrent miscarriage affects 2 to 5% of couples trying to conceive. The causes vary widely and are sometimes impossible to find. As a result, nearly 50% of couples do not receive a satisfactory explanation of the causes of their recurrent pregnancy loss, despite a thorough clinical investigation.

Rima Slim, a scientist in the Child Health and Human Development Program at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC), and her team showed that a mutation in the CCNB3 gene, which plays a critical role in cell division leading to the creation of normal egg, was the cause that led to the loss of the embryo in each of her pregnancies. The finding appears in the Journal of Medical Genetics.

“Genetic abnormalities that lead to recurrent miscarriages may occur in three different genomes: the mother’s, the father’s, and the offspring’s. They can also be caused by environmental factors affecting the uterus, sperm, or eggs, and the interactions of these factors with the three genomes. This generates a tremendous complexity that has delayed our understanding of recurrent miscarriage,” explains Slim, who is also a professor in the department of human genetics at McGill University’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences.

“Although next-generation sequencing cannot identify all the genetic causes of recurrent miscarriages, it could benefit some patients.”


 Get The Latest By Email

Weekly Magazine Daily Inspiration

Study coauthor William Buckett, the director and founder of the Reproductive Centre’s Miscarriage Clinic of the MUHC, says that finding an explanation can guide couples through their steps and spare them further emotional pain from subsequent miscarriages.

“The particular case illustrated in this article highlights the critical need for further research into the causes of recurrent miscarriage. We should not turn, without evidence, toward expensive and sometimes dangerous treatments that may prove to be unnecessary,” says Buckett, who followed the patient in this study.

The study took place in collaboration with the Genome Quebec Innovation Centre and the University of Pittsburgh. Its results consolidate a study led in 2020 by researchers at the Royan Institute for Reproductive Biomedicine in Iran, who found a mutation in the same gene in two sisters who also experienced multiple miscarriages.

“For nearly 20 years, the woman we followed in our study and her partner sought help from many specialists around the world and tried multiple assisted reproductive treatments without success,” says Slim. “Had we known this defect earlier in the reproductive life of this patient, we could have told her that her best management option is egg donation and in vitro fertilization.

“We are pleased to have identified the cause of miscarriages in this couple and would like to see more women benefiting from next-generation sequencing, a technology that is becoming increasingly available.”

Funding for the research came from the Fondation du Grand Défi Pierre Lavoie.

Source: McGill University

About The Author

Evelyne Dufresne-McGill

books_health

This article originally appeared on Futurity

AVAILABLE LANGUAGES

English Afrikaans Arabic Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Danish Dutch Filipino Finnish French German Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Indonesian Italian Japanese Korean Malay Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Romanian Russian Spanish Swahili Swedish Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Vietnamese

follow InnerSelf on

facebook icontwitter iconyoutube iconinstagram iconpintrest iconrss icon

 Get The Latest By Email

Weekly Magazine Daily Inspiration

Wednesday, 05 May 2021 08:15

While our immune system and antibiotics both do a great job of helping us fight life-threatening infections, the emergence of antibiotic resistance is quickly making it more difficult to cure...

Wednesday, 21 April 2021 07:23

Whether it’s your arthritic relative who knows rain is on the way when their knees ache or your lifelong pal who gets a headache when a storm is approaching, we all know somebody who claims they...

Tuesday, 27 April 2021 08:56

Peas, lentils, chickpeas, beans and peanuts: if it comes in a pod then chances are it’s a legume. These unassuming food crops have a special ability that makes them fairly unique in the plant...

Saturday, 03 April 2021 08:08

Coffee, green tea and other caffeinated drinks are a popular way to start the morning. Not only does it give many people a much-needed boost, but caffeine can also help when it comes to fitness.

Saturday, 01 May 2021 08:12

High-intensity interval training (HIIT) workouts have become popular in recent years for a number of reasons. They don’t require as much time as a regular workout (some can take as little as 10...

Thursday, 06 May 2021 00:51

Have you ever walked into an empty room and immediately sensed that the atmosphere was laced with tension? You may have had no idea what occurred there prior to your arrival, yet you somehow knew...

New Attitudes - New Possibilities

InnerSelf.comClimateImpactNews.com | InnerPower.net
MightyNatural.com | WholisticPolitics.com | InnerSelf Market
Copyright ©1985 - 2021 InnerSelf Publications. All Rights Reserved.