Expression of HOXA11 in the mid-luteal endometrium from women with endometriosis-associated infertility

Małgorzata Szczepańska, Malgorzata Szczepańska, Przemyslaw Wirstlein, Przemysław Wirstlein, Jana Skrzypczak, Paweł P Jagodziński, Paweł P. Jagodzińśki
Reproductive biology and endocrinology : RB&E · 2012 · vol. 10(1) , pp. 1 · doi:10.1186/1477-7827-10-1 · PMID:22233680 · W2121119191
article OA: gold CC0 ⤵ 30 in-corpus citations
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⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-07 ⓘ

This study found significantly lower HOXA11 transcript and protein levels in women with endometriosis-associated infertility, linked to increased HOXA11 gene hypermethylation and higher DNMT3A transcript levels.

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⚙ AI-generated deep summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-07 ⓘ

This study measured HOXA11 transcript and protein levels in eutopic mid-secretory (mid-luteal) endometrium from 18 infertile women with minimal endometriosis, 16 fertile controls, and 16 infertile women with fallopian tubal occlusion, using real-time qPCR and western blotting, and also quantified DNMT1, DNMT3A, and DNMT3B transcripts. Compared with both control groups, women with endometriosis-associated infertility had significantly lower HOXA11 mRNA and HOXA11 protein, and they showed higher CpG methylation in the HOXA11 first exon, while DNMT3A transcripts were increased; DNMT1 and DNMT3B did not differ. A key caveat is that the analysis is based on endometrium sampled at a single cycle phase/window and involves modest sample sizes. This paper is centrally about endometriosis — it examines HOXA11 expression and HOXA11 promoter methylation in eutopic endometrium from women with endometriosis-associated infertility.

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Abstract

BACKGROUND: A decrease in HOXA11 expression in eutopic mid-secretory endometrium has been found in women with endometriosis-associated infertility. METHODS: Using Real-time quantitative PCR (RQ-PCR) and western blotting analysis we studied the HOXA11 transcript and protein levels in mid-luteal eutopic endometrium from eighteen infertile women with minimal endometriosis, sixteen healthy fertile women and sixteen infertile women with fallopian tubal occlusion from the Polish population. We also evaluated transcript levels of DNA methyltransferases DNMT1, DNMT3A and DNMT3B in these groups of women. RESULTS: There were significantly lower levels of HOXA11 transcripts (p = 0.003, p = 0.041) and protein (p = 0.004, p = 0.001) in women with endometriosis as compared to fertile women and infertile women with tubal occlusion. Moreover, we found significantly higher methylation levels of the CpG region in the first exon of HOXA11 in infertile women with endometriosis compared with fertile women (p < 0.001) and infertile women with tubal occlusion (p < 0.001). We also observed significantly increased levels of DNMT3A transcript in women with endometriosis than fertile women (p = 0.044) and infertile women with tubal occlusion (p = 0.047). However, we did not observe significant differences in DNMT1 and DNMT3B transcript levels between these investigated groups of women. CONCLUSIONS: We confirmed that reduced HOXA11 expression may contribute to endometriosis-associated infertility. Moreover, we found that DNA hypermethylation can be one of the possible molecular mechanisms causing a decrease in HOXA11 expression in the eutopic mid-secretory endometrium in infertile women with endometriosis.

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Condition tags

mesh:D004715endometriosisinfertility

MeSH descriptors

Endometriosis Endometrium Homeodomain Proteins Infertility, Female Luteal Phase Adult Constriction, Pathologic Constriction, Pathologic CpG Islands CpG Islands DNA (Cytosine-5-)-Methyltransferase 1 DNA (Cytosine-5-)-Methyltransferases DNA (Cytosine-5-)-Methyltransferases DNA Methyltransferase 3A DNA Methyltransferase 3B Endometriosis Endometrium Fallopian Tubes Fallopian Tubes Female

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