Relationship between biotransformation enzyme genes in polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon metabolism, telomere length and missed abortion

The mechanism underlying the effects of Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) on missed abortion (MA) remains unclear. This study explored the relationship between PAHs exposure, telomere length (TL), metabolizing enzyme gene polymorphism, and MA in a case-control study with 253 pregnant women. A competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to quantify PAH-DNA adducts. The DNA was extracted from villi tissue for the analysis of TL using the real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) method. Single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping was performed using multiplex PCR amplification and high-throughput sequencing methods. The adjusted logistic regression model was used to reveal the relationship between PAH-DNA adducts, TL and MA pairs. The Generalized Multifactor Dimensionality Reduction (GMDR) was used to analyze gene–gene and gene–environment interactions. Results showed higher PAH-DNA adducts in the case group (<i>P</i> = 0.009), shorter TL in MA cases (<i>Z</i> = -4.02, <i>P</i> &lt; 0.001), and a variant site in glutathione S-transferase M1 (GSTM1) (rs1065411) were associated with MA. Higher PAH-DNA adducts level was significantly associated with MA occurrence. Significant interactions were observed between GSTM1 gene and GSTM1 (rs1065411) and PAH-DNA adducts. These findings highlight the importance of PAHs exposure in MA etiology.