Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2019. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Diabetes. Jul 15, 2019; 10(7): 396-402
Published online Jul 15, 2019. doi: 10.4239/wjd.v10.i7.396
Epidermal growth factor receptor rs17337023 polymorphism in hypertensive gestational diabetic women: A pilot study
Russell S Martins, Taimur Ahmed, Sabah Farhat, Sana Shahid, Syeda Sadia Fatima
Russell S Martins, Taimur Ahmed, Medical College, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Sindh 74800, Pakistan
Sabah Farhat, Syeda Sadia Fatima, Department of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Sindh 74800, Pakistan
Sana Shahid, Department of Physiology, Sir Syed Medical College for Girls, Karachi, Pakistan
Author contributions: Fatima SS and Shahid S designed research; Martins RS, Ahmed T and Farhat S performed research; Fatima SS and Shahid S contributed new reagents/analytic tools; Fatima SS analyzed data; and all authors wrote the paper and approved for publication.
Supported by Pakistan Health Research Counsel, No. 119/2016/RDC/AKU.
Institutional review board statement: The institutional ethics committee approved the research protocol, No. # 4523-BBS-ERC-16.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
ARRIVE guidelines statement: The manuscript abides the guidelines
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Syeda Sadia Fatima, MD, MPhil, PhD, Assistant Professor, Doctor, Dr, Department of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Sindh 74800, Pakistan. sadia.fatima@aku.edu
Telephone: +92-2134864564
Received: March 20, 2019
Peer-review started: March 22, 2019
First decision: May 31, 2019
Revised: June 10, 2019
Accepted: June 21, 2019
Article in press: June 21, 2019
Published online: July 15, 2019
Processing time: 118 Days and 3.9 Hours
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

Pregnancy induced hypertension and diabetes are an increasing threat to the wellbeing of both mother and the baby. The basic pathophysiological link to disease predisposition is attributed to the functionality of epidermis and angiogenesis. Several genetic studies have provided evidence that epidermal growth factor dysfunction can lead to hypertension and its complications in preg-nancy.

Research motivation

Materno-fetal mortality is on the rise in lower middle income countries; predominantly due to lack of primary prevention of non-communicable diseases. This led us to investigate one of the route cause i.e. genetic modification as a risk for development of disease.

Research objectives

Explore any association of SNP rs17337023 with the development of gestational hypertension in pregnant females with gestational diabetes.

Research methods

A case-control study was conducted recruiting 202 pregnant women at 28 wk of gestation. Their blood pressure, blood glucose levels were measures and genotyping of EGFR SNP rs17337023 was performed via tetra arms PCR.

Research results

No difference was seen in the EGFR rs17337023 polymorphism genotype frequency among both normotensive and hypertensive groups in this study.

Research conclusions

This pilot study indicates that polymorphisms in rs17337023 may not be involved in the pathophysiology of gestational hypertension in gestational diabetes. Further large-scale studies should explore polymorphism in epidermal growth factor receptor and other genes in this regard.

Research perspectives

This study has shown some negative results linking a specific area of the gene EGFR; however, it should be noted that other factors may also be in play such as obesity and family history that can be a contributing factor along with genetic predisposition for hypertension. This opens up new avenues for researchers to perform prospective studies to identify the causal link between genetic and environmental factors.