Investigating the Association of MTHFR C677T Gene Polymorphism with Recurrent Spontaneous Abortion Among Azerbaijani Women from Northwest Iran

Background: Recurrent spontaneous abortion (RSA), defined as two or more succeeding abortions during 20 weeks of gestation, affects 3-5% of pregnancies. Several studies have found that most women with RSA had at least one (and sometimes two copies) of the methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) C677T variant. Materials and Methods: The study involved 118 women who had two or more spontaneous abortions (SAs) as the case group and 118 women who had at least one live birth but no SA as the control group. Clinical features such as age, body mass index (BMI), medication received, family history of abortion, and thrombophilia were investigated. Real-time PCR was used for genotyping subjects for MTHFR C677T gene polymorphism. Results: Significant differences in age, BMI, and medication received characters have been shown between those in the patients' group. For the MTHFR C677T gene, the genotypes for the patients' group were 36%, 60%, and 4%, whereas the genotypes for the control group were 30%, 58%, and 12%. In addition, the C and T allelic frequencies were 59% and 41% in the healthy control group and 67% and 33% in the patients' group, respectively. A significant association was found between the TT genotype and RSA. A 3.84-fold increased risk of RSA was associated with the TT genotype (odds ratio = 3.84, confidence interval: 1.28-10.93, p-value = 0.02). Conclusions: In this study, homozygosity for the T allele was significantly lower in the RSA-affected than in healthy women, whereas heterozygosity did not vary substantially between the two groups, which was in line with other studies.