Bioinformatics and gestational diseases Lab Report

Bioinformatics and gestational diseases - Lab Report Example Further research is indicated. Introduction Preeclampsia is a gestational disease of fairly common occurrence. It has effects of varying severity, and may in its worst forms cause a risk to the survival of both mother and fetus [1]. It is primarily linked to high blood pressure during pregnancy, and the risk of suffering from the condition is greatly increased with chronic hypertension in the mother [2]. However, it may also be linked to genetic factors in the fetus and the mother that affect the growth of the placenta, especially the vascular layout of the placenta [3]. Despite the potential severity of the condition and the amount of research conducted, the ultimate cause of preeclampsia is still unknown [4]. Genetic analysis methods have been used in an attempt to determine what genes and proteins associated with those genes are linked to preeclampsia. Coding these genes could allow a statistical determination of risk as well as a codification of the risk factors [5]. Therefore, t his paper will look at the current accepted statistical determinants surrounding preeclampsia and what is currently known regarding the genetic risk factors. Materials and Methods A search was done on Google Scholar for the keywords â€Å"preeclampsia† and the alternative spelling â€Å"pre-eclampsia† and the phrase â€Å"preeclampsia risk†, also with the alternative spelling. Precedence was given to those results that were located in journals with the words â€Å"bioinformatics†, â€Å"statistics†, or â€Å"molecular† in the titles, though this was not completely exclusive. This was done in order to obtain studies in the field of bioinformatics that were related to the gestational disease preeclampsia. An additional search restriction was added to that the articles had to be published after 2005, to ensure that only recent results that are currently considered to be accurate are used. An additional search was done on ScienceDirect and PubMe d for relevant articles. However, the parameters above returned no results within the ScienceDirect database and very few on PubMed, so the search was re-done with slightly different terms. The search was designed to restrict only to journals generally in the subject areas of molecular genetics or bioinformatics, but may not have had those keywords in the journal name. The same set of keywords was used, with the additional keywords of â€Å"molecular genetics† and â€Å"bioinformatics† in separate searches added to the phrases. Relevance was determined if the article had certain key factors in the abstract when first viewed. These included the words â€Å"risk factors†, â€Å"gene†, â€Å"allele†, or other keywords relating to genetic sequencing and its use in determining risk for preeclampsia. Therefore, the article was determined to be relevant if it appeared to be related to statistically quantifying or codifying the genetic risk factors for pre eclampsia Results One suggested genetic risk factor for preeclampsia was the rho-associated coiled-coil protein kinase 2, or the ROCK2 gene. The ROCK2 gene is located on chromosome 2p25, which previous research has suggested has a link to preeclampsia. However, the gene itself appears to be unrelated to preeclampsia, as when a group of patients were sequenced, there was no correlation between those who had preeclampsia, those who did not suffer from the condition, and the presence or absence of the gene