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embryos

IVF

Wolf

Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome

epigenetic

After we had seen how relatively easy it was to change the switches in mouse embryos, we thought that perhaps the same could be true of human embryos. In IVF, you also have the embryo for a brief period of time in a culture dish. And so we were asking the question whether as in a mouse embryo, the mere fact of human embryos having been in a culture dish, or been manipulated, could alter their epigenetic switches?
Wolf knew that Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome was caused by a faulty switch.
So what we were looking at was a group of babies and children that have the Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome. What proportion of those were conceived by, by IVF.
Could IVF be switching genes on or off? Could IVF itself cause the syndrome?
What we found was an increased occurrence of this epigenetic syndrome in the IVF population.
Although the disease is extremely rare, the risk appeared to increase three to four times with IVF. It seemed that the simple act of removing the embryo from its natural environment could trigger the disease.

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