Unravelling the genetic landscape of cervical insufficiency: Insights into connective tissue dysfunction and hormonal pathways

by Ludmila Voložonoka, Līvija Bārdiņa, Anna Kornete, Zita Krūmiņa, Dmitrijs Rots, Meilė Minkauskienė, Adele Rota, Zita Strelcoviene, Baiba Vilne, Inga Kempa, Anna Miskova, Linda Gailīte, Dace Rezeberga

The intricate molecular pathways and genetic factors that underlie the pathophysiology of cervical insufficiency (CI) remain largely unknown and understudied.

We sequenced exomes from 114 patients in Latvia and Lithuania, diagnosed with a short cervix, CI, or a history of CI in previous pregnancies. To probe the well-known link between CI and connective tissue dysfunction, we introduced a connective tissue dysfunction assessment questionnaire, incorporating Beighton and Brighton scores. The phenotypic data obtained from the questionnaire was correlated with the number of rare damaging variants identified in genes associated with connective tissue disorders (in silico NGS panel). SKAT, SKAT-O, and burden tests were performed to identify genes associated with CI without a priori hypotheses. Pathway enrichment analysis was conducted using both targeted and genome-wide approaches.

No patient could be assigned monogenic connective tissue disorder neither genetically, neither clinically upon clinical geneticist evaluation. Expanding our exploration to a genome-wide perspective, pathway enrichment analysis replicated the significance of extracellular matrix-related pathways as important contributors to CI’s development. A genome-wide burden analysis unveiled a statistically significant prevalence of rare damaging variants in genes and pathways associated with steroids (p-adj = 5.37E-06). Rare damaging variants, absent in controls (internal database, n = 588), in the progesterone receptor (PGR) (six patients) and glucocorticoid receptor (NR3C1) (two patients) genes were identified within key functional domains, potentially disrupting the receptors’ affinity for DNA or ligands.

Cervical insufficiency in non-syndromic patients is not attributed to a single connective tissue gene variant in a Mendelian fashion but rather to the cumulative effect of multiple inherited gene variants highlighting the significance of the connective tissue pathway in the multifactorial nature of CI. PGR or NR3C1 variants may contribute to the pathophysiology of CI and/or preterm birth through the impaired progesterone action pathways, opening new perspectives for targeted interventions and enhanced clinical management strategies of this condition.