Research progress and trends on epigenetics and endometriosis: a bibliometric analysis

Background Endometriosis, a common gynecological disorder characterized by ectopic endometrial tissue, has complex epigenetic mechanisms. This study provides a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of research trends in endometriosis epigenetics.

Articles on endometriosis epigenetics published from 2005 to 2026 were analyzed using the R package “bibliometrix,” VOSviewer, and CiteSpace to visualize research hotspots, key contributors, and emerging topics.

A total of 1175 articles were included, with the China leading (442 publications). Fudan University is the top institutions (76 articles, 6.4%), and Professor Taylor Hugh S. was the most prolific author (33 articles, 2.8%). Research hotspots included DNA methylation (notably HOXA10, SF-1, PR-B, ERβ, and GATA factors), histone modifications, and non-coding RNA regulation. Recent trends focus on novel epigenetic biomarkers and targeted therapies.

This analysis highlights DNA methylation and non-coding RNAs as central in endometriosis epigenetics. Continued research should prioritize discovering biomarkers and translations into clinical practice.

Not applicable. Funding (1) Yinchuan science and Technology Bureau project. (2) 2022 Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region Science and technology leading talent training project. 2022GKLRLX010. Author information Authors and Affiliations Corresponding author Ethics declarations Ethics approval and consent to participate Not applicable. Consent for publication Not applicable. Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests. Additional information Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Supplementary Information Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material. Rights and permissions Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. About this article Cite this article Li, X., Bai, Y., Luo, S. et al. Research progress and trends on epigenetics and endometriosis: a bibliometric analysis. Clin Epigenet (2026). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13148-026-02220-y Received: Accepted: Published: DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13148-026-02220-y