Leptin and leptin receptor polymorphisms and recurrent pregnancy loss

OBJECTIVE: Leptin signaling is important in the establishment of pregnancy. We sought to determine if single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the leptin and leptin receptor genes are associated with idiopathic recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL). STUDY DESIGN: We conducted a case-control study with cases defined as women with idiopathic RPL and controls as parous women without pregnancy losses. A total of 99 cases and 108 controls were genotyped for the leptin (-2548 G/A) SNP and the leptin receptor A223G SNP. Genotype and allele frequencies were compared between cases and controls using chi(2) test. RESULT: In this population, there was no significant difference in the genotype or allele frequencies for the leptin (-2548 G/A) or leptin receptor A223G SNPs between women with idiopathic RPL and controls. CONCLUSION: Although leptin signaling is critical to many aspects of reproduction, the maternal leptin and leptin receptor SNPs evaluated in this study are unlikely to have a clinically meaningful role in RPL.