Human mast cells (MCs) are long-lived tissue-resident immune Background: cells characterised by granules containing the proteases chymase and/or tryptase. Their phenotype is modulated by their tissue microenvironment. The human uterus has an outer muscular layer (the myometrium) surrounding the endometrium, both of which play an important role in supporting a pregnancy. The endometrium is a sex...

Human mast cells (MCs) are long-lived tissue-resident immune Background: cells characterised by granules containing the proteases chymase and/or tryptase. Their phenotype is modulated by their tissue microenvironment. The human uterus has an outer muscular layer (the myometrium) surrounding the endometrium, both of which play an important role in supporting a pregnancy. The endometrium is a sex...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs), through mRNA degradation or repression, act as key regulator of gene expression. Our aim was to identify specific miRNAs that are expressed in endometrium of women with and without endometriosis. We profiled the expression of 287 miRNAs in paired eutopic and ectopic endometrium and isolated endometrial cells using microarray and validated the expression of selected miRNAs us...

Background: Human mast cells (MCs) are long-lived tissue-resident immune cells characterised by granules containing the proteases chymase and/or tryptase. Their phenotype is modulated by their tissue microenvironment. The human uterus has an outer muscular layer (the myometrium) surrounding the endometrium, both of which play an important role in supporting a pregnancy. The endometrium is a sex...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs), through mRNA degradation or repression, act as key regulator of gene expression. Our aim was to identify specific miRNAs that are expressed in endometrium of women with and without endometriosis. We profiled the expression of 287 miRNAs in paired eutopic and ectopic endometrium and isolated endometrial cells using microarray and validated the expression of selected miRNAs us...

BACKGROUND Hormonal modulation of the endometrium towards receptivity is well established; however, the role of embryonic stimuli in modulation of the endometrium prior to implantation, especially in primates, is unknown. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the endometrial histology when the embryo was present in its vicinity prior to implantation. METHODS Preimplantation factor (PIF...

Endometrial regeneration is mediated, at least in part, by the existence of a specialized somatic stem cell (SSC) population recently identified by several groups using the side population (SP) technique. We previously demonstrated that endometrial SP displays genotypic, phenotypic and the functional capability to develop human endometrium after subcutaneous injection in NOD-SCID mice. We have ...

Prokineticin 1 (PROK1) is a recently described protein with a wide range of functions including tissue-specific angiogenesis, modulation of inflammatory responses, and regulation of hematopoiesis. The objective of this study was to investigate the role of PROK1 and prokineticin receptor 1 (PROKR1) in human endometrium during early pregnancy. PROK1 and PROKR1 expression is significantly elevated...

PURPOSE The presence of similar histologic subtypes of epithelial ovarian and endometrial cancers has long been noted, although the relevance of this finding to pathogenesis and clinical management is unclear. Despite similar clinical characteristics, histologic subtypes of cancers of the ovary and endometrium are treated according to organ of origin. This study compares the gene expression pro...

BACKGROUND 70-80% of sporadic endometrial carcinomas are defined as endometrioid carcinoma (EC). Early-stage, well differentiated endometrial carcinomas usually retain expression of estrogen and progesterone receptors (ER and PR, respectively), as advanced stage, poorly differentiated tumors often lack one or both of these receptors. Well-described EC prognosis includes tumor characteristics, s...