At 10-14 weeks of gestation about 80% of fetuses with chromosomal defects have abnormal accumulation of subcutaneous fluid in the nuchal region that is visualized by ultrasonography as nuchal translucency. A possible cause for this translucency is cardiac dysfunction due to the associated defects in the heart and great arteries. The aim of this study was to investigate whether in cardiac tissue from trisomic fetuses, compared to normals, there is an alteration in the steady state levels of expression of the genes encoding sarcoplasmic reticulum calcium ATPase (calcium ATPase), which is known to be downregulated in postnatal heart failure. After termination of pregnancy at 10-18 weeks of gestation, mRNA was extracted from cardiac tissue in 11 trisomy 21 and 4 trisomy 18 fetuses. Densitometric analysis of the Northern and slot blots was used to determine the steady state levels of expression of calcium ATPase and the values from the trisomic fetuses were compared to those of 30 normal controls at 10-18 weeks. Calcium ATPase gene expression did not change significantly with gestation at 10-18 weeks. In trisomic fetuses there was no significant decrease in calcium ATPase expression and expression levels of calcium ATPase were not related to increased nuchal translucency. However, the levels expressed in fetuses are already very low and cardiac dysfunction as a potential etiological factor cannot be excluded.