Objectives: Estrogen receptor α (ESR1), a member of the nuclear hormone receptor superfamily, functions as a ligand-activated transcription factor. This receptor play a pivotal role in systemic circulation maintenance during pregnancy. ESR1 XbaI (A/G) polymorphism was proposed to be associated with the risk of fetal growth abnormality in pre-eclampsia. Methods: A literature search was conducted in electronic databases including PubMed, Scopus, Elsevier, Springer and Google Scholar to find eligible studies. The pooled odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals were calculated under dominant, recessive, co-dominant, and allelic models. Results: This meta-analysis included 4 eligible studies consisting 612 cases and 619 controls. The ORs for the XbaI (A/G) polymorphism and pre-eclampsia were not indicative of any association under several genetic models including dominant model (GG+AG vs. AA: OR = 1.036 [95%CI: 0.793–1.354]; p = 0.795), recessive model (GG vs. AG+AA: OR =1.352 [95%CI: 0.920–1.986]; p = 0.125), co-dominant model (GG vs. AA: OR = 1.267 [95%CI: 0.833–1.927]; p = 0.269), and allelic model (G vs. A: OR = 1.090 [95%CI: 0.919–1.293]; p = 0.320). Conclusions: In order to better understand the potential etiology for pre-eclampsia in human, large well-designed studies with more participants are needed to perform the association of this polymorphism with pre-eclampsia among different ethnic population in future. It also will be necessary to perform research studies that included combined genetic factors, haplotype analysis and other risk factors in different ethnic population.
