Gene is key to premature birth

FINALLY we have a clue as to why African-American women are more than twice as likely to give birth prematurely as women of European origin.

One in eight African-Americans carries a mutated version of a gene that may weaken membranes that support the fetus in the womb, a genetic analysis suggests, compared with just 1 in 25 Americans of European descent.

The mutation is of a gene known as SERPINH1, which encodes a protein that stabilises the structural protein collagen, say Jerome Strauss of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, and colleagues (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0603676103).

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