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Published on: May 17, 2024
General imprinting status is stable in assisted reproduction-conceived offspring
Chun Feng1, Shen Tian, Yu Zhang
1Department of Reproductive Endocrinology, Women's Hospital, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, People's Republic of China.
Objective:
To evaluate whether the genomic imprinting status of assistant reproductive technology (ART)-conceived offspring is stable.
Design:
Prospective clinical observational study.
Setting:
In vitro fertilization (IVF) center, university-affiliated teaching hospital.
Patient(S):
Sixty ART-conceived babies (30 IVF and 30 intracytoplasmic sperm injection [ICSI]) and 60 naturally conceived babies.
Intervention(S):
Collection of umbilical cord blood and peripheral blood samples.
Main Outcome Measure(S):
Expression profile was examined by microarray and real-time reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (PCR), allele-specific expression was studied by direct sequencing after PCR, and DNA methylation status was investigated by sodium bisulfite sequencing.
Result(S):
Hierarchic clustering demonstrated no obvious clustering between the ART- and naturally conceived offspring, suggesting similar genomic imprinting expression between the two groups. Three differentially expressed genes were identified in ART-conceived offspring, with PEG10 and L3MBTL up-regulated and PHLDA2 down-regulated. Allele-specific expression of the differentially expressed imprinted genes was maintained in the majority of the ART- and naturally conceived offspring. However, in one ICSI case, monoallelic expression of L3MBTL was disrupted and all CpGs were completely unmethylated. These were not inherited from the parents.
Conclusion(S):
The global profile of imprinting is stable in children conceived through ART. However, imprinting of a few specific imprinted genes may be vulnerable in a fraction of ART-conceived children.
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