Each year in the United States about one million (17%) of all pregnancies experience complications that result in fetal loss. Of the five million pregnancies that end in a live birth approximately 12% are born prematurely. Vaginal disorders and infections during pregnancy, particularly bacterial vaginosis (BV), are known risk factors for both miscarriage and preterm birth (PTB). Identifying the environmental and genetic risk factors for these complex reproductive disorders is important for improving health through better diagnostic methods and treatments.
The purpose of this project is to examine the genetics and epidemiology of BV and PTB as examples of complex reproductive disorders. Cervical immunity clearly plays an important role in the pathogenesis and progression of BV. Therefore, cervical cytokine concentrations were measured during the first trimester of pregnancy in BV positive (BV+) and BV negative (BV-) women. Genetic associations between cytokine receptor genes and cervical cytokine concentrations were identified and discovered to differ by both BV status and race.
The genetics of PTB was examined by genotyping approximately 1500 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from 160 genes involved in preterm pathways, including decidual hemorrhage, infection and inflammation, activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, and uterine distention. SNPs in both the decidual hemorrhage and infection/inflammation pathways were associated with PTB. Additionally, many of these associations corroborate results from a previous association study.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-01142009-105542 |
| Date | 14 January 2009 |
| Creators | Ryckman, Kelli Kae |
| Contributors | Scott M. Williams, Marshall L. Summar, Dana C. Crawford, Jonathan L. Haines, Hyagriv N. Simhan |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-01142009-105542/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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