IVF Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about IVF, including details on in vitro fertilization, infertility, treatment, procedure, pregnancy, success rates. | ||||||||
|
Blood lymphocyte chimerism associated with IVF and monochorionic dizygous twinning: case report.Williams CA, Wallace MR, Drury KC, Kipersztok S, Edwards RK, Williams RS, Haller MJ, Schatz DA, Silverstein JH, Gray BA, Zori RT The R.C.Philips Unit, Division of Genetics, Department of Pediatrics, University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, Florida, USA. Willicx@peds.ufl.edu We report on dizygotic (DZ) twins, conceived by IVF and ICSI with assisted hatching, who each had a mixture of 46,XX and 46,XY cells in blood lymphocytes. The female twin had mild genitalia abnormalities but further study revealed anatomically normal reproductive anatomy. Chromosome and fluorescence in situ hybridization studies of buccal, skin and ovarian tissue were normal, as were buccal tissue DNA studies. Fetal ultrasound and fetal membrane pathology were consistent with a monochorionic, diamniotic placenta (MCDAP). These twins thus have blood chimerism but are not chimeric in the other tissues studied. The mechanism for the chimerism could be due to either placental vascular anastamoses (after the development of the haematoblast stem cells) or due to an admixture of trophoblast cells during early blastocyst development. Such trophoblast cell admixtures would be restricted to the extraembryonic tissues so that general physical development in the fetus is normal and without somatic cell chimerism. This case in combination with others previously reported suggests that in IVF conceptions, the prevalence of blood chimerism associated with twinning, and the occurrence of DZ twinning associated with MCDAP, may be higher than previously thought. Published 19 November 2004 in Hum Reprod, 19(12): 2816-21.
© 2004-2008 IVF Research Today. All Rights Reserved. |
| ||||||
