Role of aromatase in endometrial disease

S E Bulun, Bulun Se, S Yang, Yang S, Fang Z, Z. Fang, B Gurates, Gurates B, Tamura M, M Tamura, J Zhou, Zhou J, S Sebastian, Sebastian S
The Journal of steroid biochemistry and molecular biology · 2001 · doi:10.1016/s0960-0760(01)00134-0 · PMID:11850203
review OA: closed public-domain-us ⤵ 1 in-corpus citation
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⚙ AI-generated summary by gemini-2.5-flash-lite, 2026-06-12 ⓘ

Aromatase is aberrantly expressed in endometriosis, producing local estrogen and stimulating PGE2, while impaired estradiol inactivation further exacerbates local hormone accumulation.

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Abstract

Aromatase is the key enzyme for estrogen biosynthesis. It is normally expressed in the human ovary, skin, adipose tissue and brain. Aromatase activity is not detectable in normal endometrium. In contrast, aromatase is expressed aberrantly in endometriosis and is stimulated by PGE2. This results in local production of estrogen, which induces PGE2 formation and establishes a positive feedback cycle. Another abnormality in endometriosis, i.e. deficient 17beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (17beta-HSD) type 2 expression, impairs the inactivation of estradiol to estrone. These molecular aberrations collectively favor accumulation of increasing quantities of estradiol and PGE2 in endometriosis. The clinical relevance of these findings was exemplified by the successful treatment of an unusually aggressive case of post-menopausal endometriosis using an aromatase inhibitor.

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Condition tags

endometriosis

MeSH descriptors

Aromatase Endometriosis Aromatase Aromatase Aromatase Inhibitors Dinoprostone Dinoprostone Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Enzyme Inhibitors Enzyme Inhibitors Estradiol Estradiol Estrogens Estrogens Estrogens Estrone Estrone

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Cited by (4)

Cited by (4)

SciLite annotations

chemicals 5
estrogen estrogen estradiol estrone estradiol
organisms 1
human

Source provenance

europepmc
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Courtesy of the U.S. National Library of Medicine