First Bosnian Study of the Relationship between APOE rs7412 and rs429358 Variants and Pregnancy Loss

Due to inconsistent results of APOE variants in the survival of pregnancy we investigated the potential relationship of APOE rs7412 and rs429358 with pregnancy loss (PL) in Bosnian women. We enrolled 154 women with PL. The minimum week of miscarriage was 6, while the maximum was 28. As a control group, an equal number of mothers with at least one live-born child was included. All women were recruited from the Institution of Health Protection of Women and Motherhood in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Genotyping was performed by real- time PCR at the Department of General Pharmacology and Pharmacoeconomics, Pomeranian Medical University. The prevalence of genotypes E2/E3, E2/E4, E3/E3, E3/E4, E4/E4 in the group with and without PL were: 14.3 %, 1.3 %, 70.8 %, 12.3 %, 1.3 %, and 13.6 %, 1.3 %, 70.1 %, 14.3 %, 0.7 %, respectively. The frequency of the E4/E4 genotype in women with 1-2 and 3-4 PL compared to women without PL did not differ significantly between those three groups (P value = 0.0712). The frequencies of alleles ԑ2, ԑ3, ԑ4 in the group with and without PL were: 6.8 %, 85.1 %, 8.1 % and 7.5 %, 84.1 %, 8.4 %, respectively, and did not differ significantly. We conclude that our study does not confirm rs7412 and rs429358 as a potential risk factor for PL in the studied group. To elucidate the relationship between PL and variants of the APOE gene, studies with a larger sample size and placental histomorphology and genetic diagnosis are required.