Protective role of maternal p.Val158Met catechol-omethyltransferase polymorphism against early-onset preeclampsia and its complications

Abstract

Background: Up until now there have been contradictory data about the association between p.Val158Met catecholO-methyltransferase (COMT) polymorphism and risk of preeclampsia (PE). The goal of this study was to assess the potential correlation between p.Val158Met COMT polymorphism and risk of early-onset PE, risk of a severe form of early-onset PE, as well as risk of small-for-gestationalage (SGA) complicating PE. Methods: The study included 47 early-onset PE patients and 47 control cases. Forty-seven early-onset PE patients were grouped by disease severity (33 patients with a severe form and 14 patients without severe features) and secondly by size for gestational age (12 patients with appropriate-for-gestational-age (AGA) and 35 patients with SGA size). p.Val158Met polymorphism was genotyped by PCR-RFLP analysis. Results: Allele analysis showed significant difference in COM T allele distribution between early-onset PE and control group as well as early-onset PE SGA and controls (p= 0.04057 and p=0.0411 respectively). A statistically significant distribution difference between the severe form and form without severe features of early-onset PE patients was not observed (p> 0.05). The highest difference observed was in the allele recessive model where COMT MetMet genotype was associated with decreased risk of early-onset PE (O R = 0.281; 95%CI = 0 .092-0.7836) and PE complications including severe early-onset PE (OR= 0.304; 95% C I= 0.086-0.944) and SGA early-onset PE (O R = 0.284; 95% C I= 0.081-0.874). Conclusions: COMT may be used as a candidate gene for early-onset PE and its severe form and SGA complications.

Keywords

• comt
• polymorphism
• early-onset preeclampsia
• severe
• sga