IL-6 gene promoter polymorphisms: genetic susceptibility to recurrent pregnancy loss.

Recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL) is defined as three or more pregnancy losses before 20 weeks. RPL is a multifactorial condition with several etiologic factors including genetic abnormalities of the parents, anatomical, endocrinological, hematologic and immunologic abnormalities, infections, nutritional and environmental factors. The causes of pregnancy loss in about half of the women with RPL even after extensive investigations remain unknown. We analyzed IL-6 -174 G/C, -572 G/C, -597 G/A, -1363 G/T, -2954 G/C promoter region polymorphisms in 113 RPL patients and 113 healthy subjects by using polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) assay. The -174G/C genotypic and -174C allelic frequency and the -2954G/C genotypic and -2954C allelic frequency of IL-6 was higher in RPL patients than healthy controls and a significant association was found between RPL and -174G/C, -2954G/C polymorphisms (p < 0.0001, OR: 0.28, 95% CI: 0.15-0.51, p < 0.034, OR: 0.16, 95% CI: 0.01-1.12 respectively). We found remarkably similar frequencies in RPL patients compared to controls for IL-6 -572G/C,-597G/A and -1363G/T genotypes/alleles and no association was observed between RPL and these polymorphisms. Our study supported that IL-6 -174G/C and -2954G/C polymorphisms were associated with an increased risk of RPL in Turkish patients (Tab. 3, Ref. 24).

Effects of iloprost on experimental ischemia and reperfusion injury in rat ovary.

We investigated the protective effect of iloprost against ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury in rat ovary. We used 32 female Sprague-Dawley rats randomly allocated to four experimental groups: sham, ischemia, I/R and I/R + iloprost. Ovarian torsion was established in all rats except the sham group. The torsion group was exposed to ischemia for 3 h. The detorsion group was exposed to 3 h ischemia applied + 3 h reperfusion. The detorsion + iloprost group was exposed to ischemia for 3 h + reperfusion for 3 h + intravenous (IV) iloprost infusion for 60 min starting at the beginning of reperfusion. Ovaries were removed and prepared for histopathological evaluation. Reduced glutathione (GSH) and malondialdehyde (MDA) were measured in the blood. The total histopathological injury score and MDA level of the ischemia group were significantly higher than for the sham group. Ovarian injury score and MDA level following I/R increased compared to the ischemia group. Iloprost administration reduced the total injury score and MDA level. The GSH level was higher in the I/R + iloprost group than in the I/R group. We concluded that IV iloprost administration reduces I/R injury in rat ovarian tissue.