Rodent Models of Experimental Endometriosis: Identifying Mechanisms of Disease and Therapeutic Targets

Kaylon L Bruner-Tran, Kaylon L. Bruner‐Tran, Shilpa Mokshagundam, Jennifer L Herington, Tianbing Ding, Kevin G Osteen
Current women's health reviews · 2018 · vol. 14(2) , pp. 173–188 · doi:10.2174/1573404813666170921162041 · PMID:29861705 · W2801944335
review OA: bronze CC0 ⤵ 53 in-corpus citations
🔓 Open OA copy View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-08 ⓘ

Rodent models of experimental endometriosis have advanced understanding of disease development, steroid responsiveness, inflammation, and epigenetic alterations, revealing potential therapeutic targets.

One-sentence paraphrase of the abstract; not a substitute for reading it. No clinical advice. How this works

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Although it has been more than a century since endometriosis was initially described in the literature, understanding the etiology and natural history of the disease has been challenging. However, the broad utility of murine and rat models of experimental endometriosis has enabled the elucidation of a number of potentially targetable processes which may otherwise promote this disease. OBJECTIVE: To review a variety of studies utilizing rodent models of endometriosis to illustrate their utility in examining mechanisms associated with development and progression of this disease. RESULTS: Use of rodent models of endometriosis has provided a much broader understanding of the risk factors for the initial development of endometriosis, the cellular pathology of the disease and the identification of potential therapeutic targets. CONCLUSION: Although there are limitations with any animal model, the variety of experimental endometriosis models that have been developed has enabled investigation into numerous aspects of this disease. Thanks to these models, our under-standing of the early processes of disease development, the role of steroid responsiveness, inflammatory processes and the peritoneal environment has been advanced. More recent models have begun to shed light on how epigenetic alterations con-tribute to the molecular basis of this disease as well as the multiple comorbidities which plague many patients. Continued de-velopments of animal models which aid in unraveling the mechanisms of endometriosis development provide the best oppor-tunity to identify therapeutic strategies to prevent or regress this enigmatic disease.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

endometriosis

Citation neighborhood

Papers in the corpus that this work cites (lower rings, blue) and that cite this one (upper rings, green). Dot size scales with the paper's in-corpus citation count — bigger dot = more influential within the endo/adeno field. Click a dot to open that paper. [ expand to 2 hops ] — adds papers reached through this work's immediate citers/citees. Heavier; up to 60 extra dots.

References (100)

Cited by (50)

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-06-04T01:30:01.192114+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-04T00:00:01.174412+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-05-13T22:19:43.094626+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK