{"paper_id":"0192be81-f97e-4396-b130-f297d8f5fa45","body_text":"Abstract\nBackground\nEndometriosis is a gynecological disorder that affects a large number of women worldwide, with several complications including chronic pelvic pain, infertility, and reduced health. Considering the MAPK signaling pathway is involved in endometriosis, we examined the hsa-miR-199a-5p and its predicted target gene, MAP3K11, expression levels to investigate an association between their concurrent dysregulation and endometriosis and to assess their expression changes in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs).\nMethods\nThe sequences of hsa-miR-199a-5p and its target gene, MAP3K11, were obtained by using TargetScan and miRDB databases. Blood samples were collected from 40 women diagnosed with endometriosis and 40 age-matched healthy controls. Quantitative real-time PCR was conducted to assess the expression levels of the genes, and GAPDH and U6 genes were used as internal control genes.\nResults\nWe observed a notable increase in the expression levels of both hsa-miR-199a-5p and MAP3K11 genes, 6.6-times and 9.2-times, respectively, in the patient group compared with healthy controls. Despite increased expression levels of the studied genes, a weak, non-significant negative correlation was observed between them (r = − 0.15).\nConclusions\nThese results indicate co-upregulation of both genes in PBMCs, suggesting that their interaction may involve an indirect or post-transcriptional relationship between hsa-miR-199a-5p and MAP3K11. Overall, the findings support that dysregulated circulating miRNAs and their target genes may be associated with endometriosis.\nSimilar content being viewed by others\nData Availability\nNo datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.\nReferences\nChen G, et al. 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Biomed Pharmacother. 2023;164:114945. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopha.2023.114945.\nOskouei BS, Asadi Z, Esfahlan RJ. Non-invasive blood tests for earlier diagnosis and treatment of endometriosis. J Reprod Immunol. 2025;104521. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jri.2025.104521.\nAcknowledgements\nThe authors thank all participants in this study, and we especially thank the University of Guilan for supporting our study.\nFunding\nThis research did not receive any grant from funding agencies.\nAuthor information\nAuthors and Affiliations\nContributions\nMahdis Saffarhamidi conducted the experiments. Soheila Talesh Sasani and Zivar Salehi designed the study. Fereshteh Fakor examined the participants ' clinicopathological characteristics and validated their features. Mahdis Saffarhamidi and Soheila Talesh Sasani analyzed the data. Soheila Talesh Sasani and Mahdis Saffarhamidi reviewed the literature and wrote the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.\nCorresponding author\nEthics declarations\nEthics Approval\nThis study received approval ID by the Research Ethics Committees of the University of Guilan (IR.GUILAN.REC.1403.085), and all steps of the study were conducted in line with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.\nCompeting interests\nThe authors declare no competing interests.\nConsent to Participate\nInformed consent was obtained from all people who participated in our research.\nAdditional information\nPublisher’s Note\nSpringer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.\nRights and permissions\nSpringer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.\nAbout this article\nCite this article\nSaffarhamidi, M., Sasani, S.T., Fakor, F. et al. Dysregulation of hsa-miR-199a-5p and MAP3K11 in Endometriosis: An Association Study. Curr Genet Med Rep 14, 21 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40142-026-00254-5\nReceived:\nAccepted:\nPublished:\nVersion of record:\nDOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40142-026-00254-5","source_license":"CC0","license_restricted":false}