Differences in gene expression of eutopic endometrium from healthy women and endometriosis patients

Introduction: Endometriosis is one of the most common and, yet, underdiagosed disease in reproductive age women. Patients show very divergent signs of pain from none to severe with a magnitude mostly not correlated to the extent of the disease. Additionally, endometriosis is often associated with infertility. One of the pathomechanism theories is retrograde menstruation. The underlying conditon has, however, not been revealed so far. Furthermore, endometriotic lesions outside the uterus are not explained satisfactory by the aforementioned hypothesis. Processes of neoangiogenesis, proliferation and inflammation are considered to play an important roll in the development of endometriosis.

Aim: An analysis was performed to elucidate differences in the eutopic endometrium of healthy women and endometriosis patients.

Material and Methods: Scratch biopsies of the eutopic endometrium were collected during diagnostic hysteroscopy and laparoscopy of healthy and endometriosis patients as well as from endometrial scratching procedures associated with assisted reproductive techniques. Subsequently, quantitative PCR was performed for a panel of genes associated with proliferation, vascularisation and inflammation.

Results: A preliminary analyses revealed significant differences in the gene expression between the eutopic endometrium collected from healthy individuals compared to biopsies collected from endometriosis patients.

Conclusions: In this first investigated collective we have found differences in the gene expression of the endometrium of healthy patients compared to endometiosis patients. Ongoing investigations will further support the current data and further elucidate the interplay of the regulated genes.