Cytokine gene polymorphism analysis in females with a history of recurrent miscarriages

Abstract

Introduction: Recurrent miscarriage is defined as two or more recurrent pregnancy losses before the twenty-second week of gestation. Genetic, haematological and anatomical abnormalities are diagnosed in only 50% of miscarriage cases leaving the other 50% as miscarriage with an unknown cause. Various studies showed a possible association between specific immunological factors and a successful pregnancy. The aim of present study was to investigate the relationship between recurrent miscarriages and polymorphisms of cytokine genes coding for IL6-174, IL6-634, TNFα-238, TNF-β+252, TNFα-308, IFN-γ+874, IL10-592, IL10-819, IL10-1082. Methodology: A total of 100 recurrent miscarriage females and 100 control females with at least two successful pregnancies and no history of miscarriage were recruited in the study. Genotyping was achieved by polymerase chain reaction and allele-specific polymerase chain reaction together with restriction fragment length polymorphism.III Results: Results showed that IL10-592C/A and IL10-819C/T polymorphisms gave statistically significant differences between the recurrent miscarriage patients and controls both giving a p <0.0011 using the chi-square test. Haplotype analysis on the IL-10 group of promoter polymorphisms identified that the G1082C819C592 haplotype was the most common haplotype amongst the recurrent miscarriage group with 32% of the this population showing this genotype. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that genotyping for IL-10 promoter polymorphisms, particularly IL10-592C/A and IL10-819C/T, could be used as an important indicator for determining the risk for recurrent miscarriages.