Translational animal models for endometriosis research: a long and windy road

Antonio Simone Laganà, Simone Garzon, Massimo Franchi, Massimo Piergiuseppe Franchi, Casarin J, Jvan Casarin, Giuseppe Gullo, Gullo G, Fabio Ghezzi, Ghezzi F
Annals of translational medicine · 2018 · vol. 6(22) , pp. 431 · doi:10.21037/atm.2018.08.24 · PMID:30596061 · PMC6281523 · W2888408055
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⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-08 ⓘ

This review discusses the challenges and progress in developing translational animal models for studying endometriosis, a chronic, estrogen-dependent disease impacting women's reproductive health.

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⚙ AI-generated deep summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-10 · read from full text ⓘ

This paper reviews translational animal models used to study endometriosis, comparing autologous/syngeneic rodent approaches, xenotransplantation of human endometrium into immunodeficient mice, and nonhuman primate models that can develop spontaneous disease. It highlights key findings from these models, including immune–lesion interactions in immunocompetent rodents, lesion growth and therapy testing in xenotransplants with important limitations from lack of immunocompetence and estradiol support, and nonhuman primate evidence linking endometriosis staging or adhesions to reduced fertilization and term pregnancy rates and possible defects in implantation-related genes such as HOXA10. The paper explicitly notes limitations across models, including species differences (e.g., rodents do not develop disease spontaneously), challenges in diagnosing early disease in primates, and technical constraints in smaller-bodied species. This paper is centrally about endometriosis research—specifically, it synthesizes how different animal model types are constructed, validated, and limited for translating mechanistic and therapeutic findings to human disease.

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Abstract

Endometriosis is a chronic estrogen-dependent disease affecting 5–10% of women in reproductive age (1). Although it can be asymptomatic in a minority of the cases, the main symptoms and signs include chronic pelvic pain, dysmenorrhea, pain during intercourse, abnormal uterine bleeding and infertility, which may cause severe impact on patient’s psychological wellbeing and quality of life (2).
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Acknowledgements

None. Footnote Conflicts of Interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

References

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Condition tags

endometriosischronic_pelvic_paindysmenorrheainfertility

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