Genome Engineering

In the UK, one in ten babies is born before the 37^th week of pregnancy – the most premature baby in the world to survive, at 21 weeks and five days, left hospital in April 2011 weighing 7.7 pounds. Complications of premature birth include vision and breathing problems, infection and death, and premature birth appears, at least partly, to be inherited. In a paper published in PLoS Genetics, researchers from the USA and Finland may have identified a gene involved in premature birth.

Based on the idea that there may be an evolutionary drive to produce a smaller baby, because human babies have large head compared with other primate babies, the researchers looked for DNA with signs of ‘accelerated evolution’. This identified around 150 genes. By looking at the genomes of Finnish women, some of who had given birth to babies prematurely, the team found links to the follicle stimulating hormone receptor (FSHR) gene. Identification of the gene could lead to tests to highlight the women at risk of premature birth.

Premature birth and miscarriage is currently an area of active research – researchers in Utah also identified biomarkers that could be used to identify pregnancies at risk, and researchers at Washington State University have shown links between errors in chromosomal arrangement in cell division and miscarriage.