The Relationship and Expression of , and in Early Peritoneal Endometriotic Lesions and Their Modulation In Vitro.

Background: can function as a tumor suppresser and has been shown to be elevated in both endometriotic lesion tissue and serum from women with endometriosis. To further explore the role of miR-451a in the pathophysiology of endometriosis, specifically, further evaluating its association with the tumor suppressor, phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN), we examined their expression in individual endometriotic lesion tissue to gain insight into their relationship and further explore if regulates PTEN expression.

Methods: A total of 55 red, peritoneal endometriotic lesions and matched eutopic endometrial specimens were obtained from 46 patients with endometriosis. , and mRNA levels were assessed by qRT-PCR and reported for each matched eutopic and ectopic sample. To evaluate and expression of and PTEN, respectively, 12Z cells (endometriotic epithelial cell line) were transfected and expression was assessed by qRT-PCR, while PTEN protein expression was assessed by Western blotting.

Results: and expression exhibited an inverse relationship, as did and in individual lesions. Over-expression of in 12Z cells resulted in down-regulation of , while up-regulation of resulted in down-regulation of PTEN protein expression.

Conclusions: By assessing individual endometriotic lesion expression, we discovered an inverse relationship between , and , while in vitro cell transfection studies suggest that may regulate PTEN expression via modulating .