Identification of gene expression regulated by 1,25(OH)?D3 in human endometriosis cell lines with next-generation sequencing

Endometriosis is a common female reproductive disease. This disease is caused by invasion of endometrial cells into other organs. Pain at the site of ectopic endometrium and infertility are two common symptoms of endometriosis, and around 30% of infertility cases are associated with endometriosis. Vitamin D3 is a type of secosteroid, and there are plenty of studies reported that vitamin D3 treatment helps to improve fertility in both animals and human patients, as well as enhance the success rate of in vitro fertilization. We are interested in how vitamin D3 impacts gene expression in endometriosis. 1,25(OH)?D3, the active metabolite of vitamin D3, was used to treat endometriotic epithelial and stromal cell lines. Differential gene expression for the treated group versus the control group was identified with RNA-Seq. We found 149 genes whose expression levels were altered by at least two fold in epithelial cells, but only 25 genes in stromal cells. Among the 149 differentially expressed genes of the epithelial cells, we managed to locate a group of genes that are important for cell motility and invasion, with gene PLAUR and CTTN being most likely to involve in cell movement directly. Nevertheless, more evidence is needed to reveal the roles of these genes in endometriosis. Compared with epithelial cells, endometriotic stromal cells seem to be much less sensitive to 1,25(OH)?D3, according to our experiment. However, this could be a consequence of the pathology of endometriosis, we decided to follow-up by include more samples and different treatments in the future.