Abstract
Imprinting disorders have been reported in children conceived by IVF. There is concern that procedures of IVF may interfere with epigenetic processes responsible for setting imprint marks during gametogenesis. This possibility seems plausible in light of the rarity of these conditions and results of experiments examining imprint marks in model organisms subjected to in vitro manipulations. We quantitatively summarized published human data on this question by meta-analysis, relating IVF to the risk of four model imprinting disorders. Estimates of summary relative risk were 3.7 (95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.7–7.8) for Angelman syndrome, 6.1 (95% CI = 3.8–11) for Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome, and 5.7 (95% CI = 1.4–22) for Prader-Willi syndrome. Published data were insufficient to conduct meaningful analyses of risk of Silver-Russel syndrome. These results are consistent with the elevated risk of imprinting disorders following IVF, although absolute risk of these outcomes remains low. Elevated risk could in theory arise from either detrimental effects of IVF procedures or increased occurrence of aberrant methylation of imprinted genes in gametes of subfertile parents.
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Acknowledgments
Southern California Environmental Health Sciences Center (grant # 5P30ES007048) funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. The author thanks Carol Davis-Dao and Peter George Cortessis the younger for technical assistance.
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Cortessis, V.K. (2009). Imprinting Errors and IVF. In: Voorhis, B., Schlegel, P., Racowsky, C., Carrell, D. (eds) Biennial Review of Infertility. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-60327-392-3_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-60327-392-3_16
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