tailieunhanh - Genomic imprinting and assisted reproduction

Universal access means that enough services and information are available, accessible and acceptable to meet the different needs of all individuals. This requires that people can safely reach services without travelling for a long time or distance, and that those with disabilities can easily access buildings. Services and treatments must be affordable, and based on principles of equity such that poor people do not bear a higher burden from the cost than more wealthy people. Care should also be sensitive to social and cultural considerations including gender, language and. | Reproductive Health BioMed Central Review Genomic imprinting and assisted reproduction Ariane Paoloni-Giacobino and J Richard Chaillet Open Access Address Department of Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry University of Pittsburgh W1007 Biomedical Science Tower 200 Lothrop Street Pittsburgh Pennsylvania 15213 USA Email Ariane Paoloni-Giacobino - apgiacob@ J Richard Chaillet - chaillet@ Corresponding author Published 26 October 2004 Received II August 2004 Accepted 26 October 2004 Reproductive Health 2004 1 6 doi 1742-4755-1-6 r This article is available from http content I I 6 2004 Paoloni-Giacobino and Chaillet licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http licenses by which permits unrestricted use distribution and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Imprinted genes exhibit a parent-of-origin specific pattern of expression. Such genes have been shown to be targets of molecular defects in particular genetic syndromes such as Beckwith-Wiedemann and Angelman syndromes. Recent reports have raised concern about the possibility that assisted reproduction techniques such as in vitro fertilization or intracytoplasmic sperm injection might cause genomic imprinting disorders. The number of reported cases of those disorders is still too small to draw firm conclusions and the safety of these widely used assisted reproduction techniques needs to be further evaluated. Introduction The first in vitro fertilization IVF baby was born in 1978 and intracytoplasmic sperm injection ICSI was introduced in 1992 for the treatment of male infertility. Both these techniques have been continually amended and access to them improved for infertile couples. Indeed assisted reproduction now accounts for 1 to 3 of births in developed countries 1 . Until recently these techniques