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Assisted Reproduction · Safety and Risks

Pregnancy by Assisted Reproductive Technology Is Associated with Shorter Telomere Length in Neonates

Minamoto T, Nakayama K, Ishibashi T, Ishikawa M, Nakamura K, Yamashita H, Shanta K, Mahmud HM, Razia S, Iida K, Sakashita G, Nakamura T, Kanda H, Kyo S

Published December 18, 2020 International journal of molecular sciences, 21(24)
DOI 10.3390/ijms21249688 PMID 33353140 PMC PMC7766074

RRM Academy Synopsis

ART pregnancy is linked to shorter telomeres in Japanese newborns

A retrospective study of 578 mother-newborn pairs at one Japanese hospital found that newborns from ART pregnancies had shorter cord blood telomeres than other newborns. Telomeres cap the ends of chromosomes. The difference held after adjusting for 10 other factors.

Key Findings

  • The 578 singleton pairs analyzed came from 848 mother-newborn pairs examined at Shimane University Hospital from 2016 to 2018. In 58 of them (10%), the mother became pregnant via ART.
  • The cord blood T/S ratio, which compares telomere signal with a reference gene, was 0.80 for the ART pregnancies and 1.04 for the pregnancies without ART (univariate p = 0.003).
  • In multiple regression across 11 factors, ART was associated with shorter telomere length (coefficient −0.0967, 95% CI −0.1733 to −0.0201, p = 0.013).
  • No other factor was significantly associated with telomere length in the multiple regression, including maternal age, BMI, gestational diabetes, stress, smoking, alcohol, preterm delivery, neonatal sex and placental weight.
  • Of the 58 ART pregnancies, 28 used conventional in vitro fertilization and 30 used intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). Telomere length did not differ significantly between the ICSI and conventional IVF groups.

Interpretation

The study is a retrospective cohort of singleton pregnancies at a single hospital, and all participants were Japanese. The findings describe an association between ART pregnancy and shorter cord blood telomeres. The ART group averaged 34.9 years of age and the non-ART group 31.3 years, a difference the authors report as not significant. The authors state that they could not confirm the detailed conditions of ART, and that DNA quality may affect the quantitative PCR results. Telomere length was measured in cord blood drawn at delivery. The authors write that their findings suggest the need for long-term investigation of children conceived by ART, and that a prospective study is needed.

RRM Context

The authors cite earlier reports of weaker blood vessel function in newborns after ART pregnancies and of higher rates of high blood pressure in adolescents conceived by ART. IVF goes around the reasons conception fails. The authors list fertilized egg quality, the patient's health and pelvic cytokines as factors still to study. Restorative reproductive medicine finds and treats underlying causes. Pregnancies that follow begin without laboratory fertilization.

Our editorial summary of this paper, not the article's abstract.

Abstract

Telomere length (TL) influences the development of lifestyle-related diseases, and neonatal TL may influence their prevalence. Various factors have been reported to affect neonatal TL. Although the fetus is exposed to multiple conditions in utero, the main factors affecting the shortening of neonatal TL are still not known. In this study, we sought to identify factors that influence fetal TL. A total of 578 mother-newborn pairs were included for TL analysis. TL was measured in genomic DNA extracted from cord blood samples using quantitative PCR. The clinical factors examined at enrollment included the following intrauterine environmental factors: maternal age, assisted reproductive technology (ART) used, body mass index (BMI), gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), maternal stress, smoking, alcohol consumption, preterm delivery, small-for-gestational-age, neonatal sex, and placental weight. Univariate and multivariate regression analyses were used to verify the relationship between neonatal TL and these clinical factors. The median neonatal TL to single-copy gene ratio was 1.0. Pregnancy with ART was among the 11 factors associated with shorter neonatal TL. From multiple regression analysis, we determined that neonatal TL was significantly shorter for pregnancies in the ART group than in the other groups. We conclude that pregnancy with ART is associated with shorter neonatal TL.

Topics

Related research

Assisted Reproduction › Safety and Risks › Neonatal and Birth Outcomes
Toshiko Minamoto, Kentaro Nakayama, Tomoka Ishibashi, Masako Ishikawa, Kohei Nakamura, Hitomi Yamashita, Kamrunnahar Shanta, Hossain Mohammad Mahmud, Sultana Razia, Kouji Iida, Gyosuke Sakashita, Tsukasa Nakamura, Hideyuki Kanda, Satoru Kyo
T Minamoto, K Nakayama, T Ishibashi, M Ishikawa, K Nakamura, H Yamashita, K Shanta, H Mahmud, S Razia, K Iida, G Sakashita, T Nakamura, H Kanda, S Kyo
PMID 33353140 33353140 DOI 10.3390/ijms21249688 10.3390/ijms21249688 Minamoto et al. 2020, Minamoto 2020

Keywords

assisted reproductive technology, developmental origins of health and disease, lifestyle, neonates, pregnancy, telomere length

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