Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Ethnic Differences In Maternal Adipokines During Normal Pregnancy, Xinhua Chen, Theresa O Scholl

Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine Faculty Scholarship

Two adipokines (adiponectin and resistin) have opposite relations with insulin resistance and inflammation. Our major focus was to determine whether there were detectable ethnic differences in maternal adipokines during pregnancy. We also explored the correlation of the adipokines with maternal glucose homeostasis, blood pressure and anthropometric parameters. Pregnant women (n = 1634) were from a large prospective cohort study in Camden NJ (African-American 36.8%; Hispanic 47.6%; Caucasian 15.6%). Serum adiponectin and resistin were measured at entry (week 16.8) and the 3rd trimester (week 30.7) using the Luminex xMapTechnology. Significant differences were observed among ethnic groups, controlling for confounding variables. African …

Two Novel Genetic Variants In The Mineralocorticoid Receptor Gene Associated With Spontaneous Preterm Birth, Inge Christiaens, Q. Wei Ang, Lindsay N. Gordon, Xin Fang, Scott Williams

Dartmouth Scholarship

Background: Preterm birth is the leading cause of mortality and morbidity in newborn infants. Its etiology is multifactorial with genes and environmental factors, including chronic maternal stress, contributing to its risk. Our objective was to investigate whether single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in genes involved in the stress response are associated with spontaneous preterm birth using a candidate gene approach.

Methods: A total of 210 cases (singleton spontaneous preterm birth at <37 >weeks) and 412 controls (singleton term birth at 38–42 weeks without a history of preterm birth) were studied. High quality maternal DNA was available from saliva samples of 190 cases …

Confident Difference Criterion: A New Bayesian Differentially Expressed Gene Selection Algorithm With Applications., Fang Yu, Ming-Hui Chen, Lynn Kuo, Heather Talbott, John S. Davis

Journal Articles: Obstetrics & Gynecology

BACKGROUND: Recently, the Bayesian method becomes more popular for analyzing high dimensional gene expression data as it allows us to borrow information across different genes and provides powerful estimators for evaluating gene expression levels. It is crucial to develop a simple but efficient gene selection algorithm for detecting differentially expressed (DE) genes based on the Bayesian estimators.

RESULTS: In this paper, by extending the two-criterion idea of Chen et al. (Chen M-H, Ibrahim JG, Chi Y-Y. A new class of mixture models for differential gene expression in DNA microarray data. J Stat Plan Inference. 2008;138:387-404), we propose two new gene …

Targeted Single Molecule Sequencing Methodology For Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome., Funda Orkunoglu-Suer, Arthur F. Harralson, David Frankfurter, Paul Gindoff, Travis J. O'Brien

Genomics and Precision Medicine Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: One of the most significant issues surrounding next generation sequencing is the cost and the difficulty assembling short read lengths. Targeted capture enrichment of longer fragments using single molecule sequencing (SMS) is expected to improve both sequence assembly and base-call accuracy but, at present, there are very few examples of successful application of these technologic advances in translational research and clinical testing. We developed a targeted single molecule sequencing (T-SMS) panel for genes implicated in ovarian response to controlled ovarian hyperstimulation (COH) for infertility.

RESULTS: Target enrichment was carried out using droplet-base multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology (RainDance®) …

Preliminary Analysis Of In Utero Low-Level Arsenic Exposure And Fetal Growth Using Biometric Measurements Extracted From Fetal Ultrasound Reports, Matthew A. Davis, John Higgins, Zhigang Li, Diane Gilbert-Diamond, Emily R. Baker, Amar Das, Margaret R. Karagas

Dartmouth Scholarship

Background: Early life exposure to arsenic is associated with decreased birth weight in highly exposed populations but little is known about effects of low-level arsenic exposure on growth in utero.

Methods: Using a sample of 272 pregnancies from New Hampshire we obtained biometric measurements directly from fetal ultrasound reports commonly found in electronic medical records. We used information extraction methods to develop and validate an automated approach for mining biometric measurements from the text of clinical reports. As a preliminary analysis, we examined associations between in utero low-level arsenic exposure (as measured by maternal urinary arsenic concentration) and fetal growth …