Dysregulation of hsa-miR-199a-5p and MAP3K11 in Endometriosis: An Association Study

Background Endometriosis 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).

The 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.

We 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).

These 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. Similar content being viewed by others Data Availability No datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.

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The authors thank all participants in this study, and we especially thank the University of Guilan for supporting our study. Funding This research did not receive any grant from funding agencies. Author information Authors and Affiliations Contributions Mahdis 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. Corresponding author Ethics declarations Ethics Approval This 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. Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests. Consent to Participate Informed consent was obtained from all people who participated in our research. Additional information Publisher’s Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Rights and permissions Springer 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. About this article Cite this article Saffarhamidi, 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 Received: Accepted: Published: Version of record: DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40142-026-00254-5