Identification of Differentially Expressed Markers for Endometriosis

Objective: Identify differentially expressed genes in the endometrium of diseased women as potential diagnostic markers. Design: All patients were selected in the study according to the following criteria: subjected to laparoscopy or laparatomy, have a regular menstrual cycle (between 21 to 35 days), no acute salpingitis, no hormonal treatments and no intra-uterine device in the last three months. The study was based on the comparison of two groups: an endometriosis group (endo) composed of all four stages of the disease, and a control group composed of women who were surgically confirmed not to have endometriotic lesions in the peritoneal cavity. The half of the latter group consisted in gynecologically healthy subjects, while the other half was composed of patients with various gynecological disorder other than endometriosis, such as fibroma or cysts. Materials/Methods: Endometrial biopsies from patients were used to extract total RNA for analysis of the gene expression pattern by the mean of different technical approaches such as differential display, cDNA arrays and real-time PCR. Results: We have identified a large array of genes exhibiting abnormal expression at the transcriptional level in the endometrium of diseased women. A first step of identification has been carried out on up to 50 samples in each experimental group (control and endo). A second step of validation consisted in measuring the mRNA levels of the candidate genes in 170 samples in the control group and 110 samples in the endo group. Statistical analysis of the final data showed that several genes were differentially transcribed in the endo group in comparison to the control group and that the difference was significant on a rather high number of samples. Conclusions: The identified genes are targeted to be used as markers to diagnose the presence of endometriosis in patients presenting various symptoms associated with the disease. Further analyses remain to be done in order to define the predictive value of individual as well as combinations of such markers. Supported By: No support.