The contribution of genetic and environmental factors to the duration of pregnancy

Abstract

This review describes how improvements in biometrical-genetic studies of twin kinships, half-sibships and cousinships have now demonstrated a sizeable fetal genetic and maternal genetic contribution to the spontaneous onset of labor. This is an important development since previous literature for the most part only reports an influence of the maternal genome. Current estimates of the percent of variation attributable to fetal genetic factors range from 11% to 35% while the range for the maternal genetic contribution is 13-20%. These same studies demonstrate an even larger influence of environmental sources over and above the influence of genetic sources and previously identified environmental risk factors. With these estimates in hand, a major goal for research on pregnancy duration is to identify specific allelic variation and environmental risk to account for this estimated genetic and environmental variation. A review of the current literature can serve as a guide for future research efforts.

Placenta: The Forgotten Organ

“…As in PE, however, placental bed biopsies in human IUGR show impaired migration of extravillous trophoblasts and impaired spiral artery remodeling (Brosens et al 1972). PTL is likely multifactorial in origin, involving a combination of genetic and environmental factors (York et al 2014), with the placenta playing an important role in its etiology (Rubens et al 2014). In addition to displaying altered trophoblast invasion and vascular remodeling (Romero et al 2014), PTL is frequently associated with placental or intrauterine infections.…”

1H NMR-based metabolomics study on the physiological variations during the rat pregnancy process

“…Pregnancy is an extraordinarily dynamic process, in which the maternal body must change its physiological and homeostatic mechanisms including metabolic, hematologic, renal, and respiratory patterns in order to ensure the continuous availability of conditions and substrates for fetal development (Bo et al, 2015;Redman and Sargent, 2005;York et al, 2014). Substantially, these physiological variations come from the metabolic changes during the pregnant period (King, 2000;Luan et al, 2014), which are complex and widespread, resulting in the maternal metabolism working from a different baseline compared with the non-pregnant state.…”

A narrow heritability evaluation of gestational age at birth

“…In the context of studies that provide unique solutions to variance components (reviewed in (York et al 2013b)) the results of Wu et. al .…”