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Telomeres protect chromosome ends and control cell division and senescence. During organogenesis, telomeres need to be long enough to ensure the cell proliferation necessary at this stage of development. Previous studies have shown that telomere shortening is associated with growth retardation and congenital malformations. However, these studies were performed in newborns or postnatally, and data on telomere length (TL) during the prenatal period are still very limited. We measured TL using quantitative PCR in amniotic fluid (AF) and chorionic villi (CV) samples from 69 control fetuses with normal ultrasound (52 AF and 17 CV) and 213 fetuses (165 AF and 48 CV) with intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR) or congenital malformations diagnosed by ultrasound. The samples were collected by amniocentesis at the gestational age (GA) of 25.0 ± 5.4 weeks and by CV biopsy at 18.1 ± 6.3 weeks. In neither sample type was TL influenced by GA or fetal sex. In AF, a comparison of abnormal versus normal fetuses showed a significant telomere shortening in cases of IUGR (reduction of 34%, P

Le role de la longueur des telomeres a ete largement etudie en cancerologie et dans plusieurs pathologies regroupees sous le terme de « telomeropathies » mais reste meconnu dans le developpement embryonnaire et la survenue de malformations congenitales. Plusieurs etudes ont montre un raccourcissement des telomeres dans les villosites choriales en cas de retard de croissance intra-uterin mais a ce jour, une seule etude a decrit l’association de telomeres courts avec des malformations congenitales [1] . Dans notre etude nous avons mesure la longueur des telomeres par PCR quantitative (Light cycler 480, technique SYBR Green I), a partir d’ADN extrait en direct sur des prelevements de liquide amniotique (n = 55) et de villosites choriales (n = 32) de fœtus « sains », hypotrophes ( [2] mais contrairement a ce qui avait ete decrit dans trois autres etudes [3] , [4] , [5] .