Autophagy in endometriosis.

Autophagy in endometriosis. Am J Transl Res. 2017;9(11):4707-4725 Authors: Yang HL, Mei J, Chang KK, Zhou WJ, Huang LQ, Li MQ Abstract Endometriosis (EMS) is a common gynecologic disease that causes chronic pelvic pain, dysmenorrhea, and infertility in women. The doctrine of menstruation back flow planting and defects in the immune system are well known and widely accepted. In recent years, increasing studies have been focused on the role of autophagy in EMS, and have shown that autophagy plays a vital role in EMS. Autophagy, which is known as the non-apoptotic form of programmed cell death induced by a large number of intracellular/extracellular stimuli, is the major cellular pathway for the degradation of long-lived proteins and cytoplasmic organelles in eukaryotic cells. Autophagy commonly refers to macroautophagy, which is characterized by autophagosomes (double-membrane vesicles). In normal endometrial tissues, autophagy is induced in glandular epithelial and stromal cells throughout the menstrual cycle. However, aberrant autophagy occurs in the eutopic endometrium and ectopic endometriotic foci, which contributes to the pathogenesis of EMS by promoting the hyperplasia of endometriotic tissues and stromal cells, restricting apoptosis, and inducing abnormal immune responses. Consistent with changes in autophagy levels between normal endometria, eutopic and ectopic endometria from patients with EMS, the altered expression of autop...
Source: American Journal of Translational Research - Category: Research Tags: Am J Transl Res Source Type: research