Ge Zhang

The common human SNP rs3820282 is associated with multiple phenotypes including gestational length and likelihood of endometriosis and cancer, presenting a paradigmatic pleiotropic variant. Deleterious pleiotropic mutations cause the co-occ…

Preterm birth (PTB) is the leading cause of infant mortality and morbidity. For several decades, extensive epidemiologic and genetic studies have highlighted the significant contribution of maternal and offspring genetic factors to PTB. Thi…

The timing of parturition is crucial for neonatal survival and infant health. Yet, its genetic basis remains largely unresolved. We present a maternal genome-wide meta-analysis of gestational duration (n = 195,555), identifying 22 associate…

BACKGROUND: Preterm birth (<37 weeks of gestation) is a major cause of neonatal death and morbidity. Up to 40% of the variation in timing of birth results from genetic factors, mostly due to the maternal genome. METHODS: We conducted a gen…

Abstract The common human single nucleotide polymorphism rs3820282 is associated with multiple phenotypes ranging from gestational length to likelihood of endometriosis and ovarian cancer and can thus serve as a paradigm for a highly pleiot…

While a genetic component of preterm birth (PTB) has long been recognized and recently mapped by genome-wide association studies (GWASs), the molecular determinants underlying PTB remain elusive. This stems in part from an incomplete availa…

The duration of pregnancy is influenced by fetal and maternal genetic and non-genetic factors. Here we report a fetal genome-wide association meta-analysis of gestational duration, and early preterm, preterm, and postterm birth in 84,689 in…

The fine control of birth timing is important to human survival and evolution. A key challenge in studying the mechanisms underlying the regulation of human birth timing is that human parturition is a unique to human event - animal models p…

BACKGROUND: Despite evidence that genetic factors contribute to the duration of gestation and the risk of preterm birth, robust associations with genetic variants have not been identified. We used large data sets that included the gestation…