Gene Polymorphisms of TCF7L2 and Risk of Preeclampsia in Pregnant Women

Preeclampsia (PE), a pregnancy complication, affects 10% of pregnancies worldwide. The develop-ment of PE has been attributed to multiple genetic variations. The aim of this study was to evaluate the possible association between TCF7L2 gene polymorphisms (rs12255372 and rs12243326) and risk of preeclampsia in Egyptian women with and without gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) as well as to assess the discrimination values of these polymorphisms as biomarkers for PE.

This case-control study included 120 pregnant women allocated into two groups: 80 preeclamptic women (40 with GDM and 40 without GDM) and a control group that included 40 normotensive pregnant women. Genotyping of rs12255372 and rs12243326 was performed by real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR).

The mutant TT and hetero GT genotypes of rs12255372 for the TCF7L2 gene were significantly associated with increased risk of preeclampsia, and the dominant model was significantly linked in PE (p < 0.001), with odds ratio (OR) = 6.1; 95 % confidence interval (CI) = 3.74 - 10.12. The mutant and hetero genotypes (CC and TC, respectively) of rs12243326 were considerably linked to a high risk of preeclampsia (p < 0.001) as well as the dominant model with a p-value of less than 0.001 and OR (95% CI) = 0.185 (0.09 - 0.39). Furthermore, there were significant differences between preeclamptic groups compared to controls according to the co-dominant model (p < 0.001), while there was no significant difference between PE women with and without GDM for rs12255372 (p = 0.603). The high predictive accuracies of TCF7L2 gene polymorphisms (rs12243326 and rs12255372) and their combination as probable indicators for PE (accuracy = 91.05%) were observed with the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis (p < 0.001).

The genetic polymorphisms of rs12255372 and rs12243326 for the TCF7L2 gene were associated with the risk of preeclampsia in Egyptian women. Thus, they could be biochemical markers for PE.