Recurrent spontaneous abortion and skewed X-inactivation: is there an association?

Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine whether there is an association between skewed X-inactivation and recurrent spontaneous abortion in a large, well-defined sample of women with recurrent loss.

Study Design: X-chromosome inactivation patterns were compared in 5 groups of women. Group 1 (recurrent spontaneous abortion) consisted of 357 women with 2 or more spontaneous losses.

Changes in markers of vascular injury in response to transient hyperhomocysteinemia.

The purpose of this study was to test whether transient increases in homocysteine would promote changes in markers of endothelial injury, cellular fibronectin (cFN), and soluble vascular cell adhesion molecule 1 (sVCAM-1). Homocysteine, cFN, and sVCAM-1 concentrations increased significantly in response to a methionine load by 6 hours in human subjects. However, no correlation was observed between homocysteine and cFN or sVCAM-1.