Polygenic embryo screening: four clinical considerations warrant further attention

S Pereira; S Carmi; G Altarescu; J Austin; D Barlevy; A Hershlag; E Juengst; K Kostick-Quenet; E Kovanci; R B Lathi; M Mukherjee; I Van den Veyver; O Zuk; G Lázaro-Muñoz; T Lencz

doi:10.1093/humrep/deac110

Polygenic embryo screening: four clinical considerations warrant further attention

Hum Reprod. 2022 Jun 30;37(7):1375-1378. doi: 10.1093/humrep/deac110.

Authors

S Pereira¹, S Carmi², G Altarescu³, J Austin⁴, D Barlevy¹, A Hershlag^{5

6}, E Juengst⁷, K Kostick-Quenet¹, E Kovanci⁸, R B Lathi⁹, M Mukherjee^{1

10}, I Van den Veyver^{11

12}, O Zuk¹³, G Lázaro-Muñoz^{14

15}, T Lencz^{16

17

18}

Affiliations

¹ Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy, Baylor College of Medicine, One Baylor Plaza, MS420, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
² Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel.
³ Preimplantation Genetic Unit and lysosomal Clinic, Medical Genetics Institute, Shaare Zedek Medical Center, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel.
⁴ Departments of Psychiatry and Medical Genetics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
⁵ Renaissance School of Medicine, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA.
⁶ Zucker School of Medicine, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY, USA.
⁷ Center for Bioethics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
⁸ Houston Assisted Reproductive Technologies (HART) Fertility Clinic, The Woodlands, TX, USA.
⁹ Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
¹⁰ Department of Sociology, University of Califorinia, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA.
¹¹ Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, 77030, USA.
¹² Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, 77030, USA.
¹³ Department of Statistics and Data Science, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel.
¹⁴ Center for Bioethics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
¹⁵ Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
¹⁶ Departments of Psychiatry and Molecular Medicine, Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, Hempstead, NY, USA.
¹⁷ Institute of Behavioral Science, Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research, Manhasset, NY, USA.
¹⁸ Division of Psychiatry Research, Zucker Hillside Hospital, Glen Oaks, NY, USA.

Abstract

Recent advances in developing polygenic scores have made it possible to screen embryos for common, complex conditions and traits. Polygenic embryo screening (PES) is currently offered commercially, and though there has been much recent media and academic coverage, reproductive specialists' points of view have not yet been prominent in these discussions. We convened a roundtable of multidisciplinary experts, including reproductive specialists to discuss PES and its implications. In this Opinion, we describe four clinically relevant issues associated with the use of PES that have not yet been discussed in the literature and warrant consideration.

Keywords: PRS; embryo screening; genetic screening; genomic risk scores; polygenic embryo screening; polygenic risk scores; trait screening.

© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Publication types

Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

Attention
Embryo, Mammalian
Genetic Predisposition to Disease
Genome-Wide Association Study
Humans
Mass Screening*
Multifactorial Inheritance*
Phenotype

Grants and funding

R01 HG011711/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/United States