Researchers at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UTHSC) and The University of Hawaii (UH) have found that Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs) do not increase the risk of genetic mutations in developing fetuses. Results of the study in mice will be released in this week's journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"Although there have now been more than 3 million humans conceived by some form of ART, there have been very few studies of potential genetic abnormalities resulting from these methods. The results of our study in mice indicate that these methods do not lead to any increased risk of mutations," said John McCarrey, UTSA professor of biology.
McCarrey and his graduate student, Patricia Murphey, along with collaborators Drs. Ryuzo Yanagimachi and Yukiko Yamazaki, University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine, and Lee Caperton, Alex McMahan and Christi Walter, UTHSC, compared mice produced by at least five different assisted reproductive technologies in vitro fertilization, embryo transfer, pre-implantation culture, intracytoplasmic sperm injection and round spermatid injection with mice produced by natural reproduction. The scientists reviewed the DNA of each group looking for "point mutations," genetic errors that are known to underlie many genetic diseases in humans.
The analysis was conducted using special mice that have been genetically manipulated to more easily detect point mutations. DNA was extracted from fetuses at mid-gestation, about 10 days past conception.
"We must make conception by assisted reproductive technologies as safe, or even safer than natural conception," said Dr. Yanagimachi.
ART technologies are now responsible for more than one percent of births in the U.S. and most Western countries. In some countries, such as Denmark, the figure is as high as six percent or
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Contact: Kris Edward Rodriguez
kris.rodriguez@utsa.edu
210-458-5116
University of Texas at San Antonio
26-Feb-2007