Three-dimensional understanding of the morphological complexity of the human uterine endometrium

Manako Yamaguchi, Kosuke Yoshihara, Kazuaki Suda, Hirofumi Nakaoka, Nozomi Yachida, Haruka Ueda, Kentaro Sugino, Yutaro Mori, Kaoru Yamawaki, Ryo Tamura, Tatsuya Ishiguro, Teiichi Motoyama, Yu Watanabe, Shujiro Okuda, Kazuki Tainaka, Takayuki Enomoto
In: bioRxiv · 2020 · doi:10.1101/2020.05.29.118034 · W3032099392
preprint OA: green CC0 ⤵ 3 in-corpus citations
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⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-06 ⓘ

This study used 3D imaging to reveal human endometrial glands form a plexus in the stratum basalis and characterized adenomyosis by glandular invasion into the myometrium.

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Abstract

Summary The histological basis of the human uterine endometrium has been established by 2D observation. However, the fundamental morphology of endometrial glands is not sufficiently understood because these glands have complicated winding and branching patterns. To construct a big picture of endometrial gland structure, we performed tissue-clearing-based 3D imaging of human uterine endometrial tissue. Our 3D immunohistochemistry and 3D layer analyses revealed that endometrial glands formed a plexus network in the stratum basalis, similar to the rhizome of grass. We then extended our method to assess the 3D morphology of adenomyosis, a representative “endometrium-related disease”, and observed 3D morphological features including direct invasion of endometrial glands into the myometrium and an ant colony-like network of ectopic endometrial glands within the myometrium. Thus, 3D analysis of the human endometrium and endometrium-related diseases will be a promising approach to better understand the pathologic physiology of the human endometrium.

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adenomyosis

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