APEX1/miR-24 axis: a promising therapeutic target in endometriosis

Purpose The present work aimed to explore the aberrant expression of APEX1 in endometrial stromal cells (ESC) and the underlying mechanisms.

The levels of APEX1 and miR-24 in endometriosis tissues were tested by qRT-PCR and Western blot. After cell transfection, cells were correspondingly classified into pcDNA3.1-NC, sh-NC, mimic NC, inhibitor NC, pcDNA3.1-APEX1, sh-APEX1, miR-24 mimic, miR-24 inhibitor, sh-NC + inhibitor NC, inhibitor-NC + sh-APEX1, sh-NC + miR-24 inhibitor, pcDNA3.1-NC + mimic NC, mimic NC + pcDNA3.1-APEX1 and pcDNA3.1-NC + miR-24 mimic group. Besides, cell proliferation, apoptosis in addition to apoptosis-related proteins Bax, Bcl-2 and cleaved-casase-3 were analyzed by BrdU assay, flow cytometry (FCM) and Western blot assays, respectively. Additionally, RIP assay was conducted to determine the interaction between pri-miR-24 and miR-24.

APEX1 and miR-24 were highly expressed in endometriosis tissues. Overexpression of APEX1 and miR-24 potentiates ESC proliferation and inhibits apoptosis, while those effects could be reversed by APEX1 and miR-24 silencing. Meanwhile, APEX1 and miR-24 could elevate ESC apoptosis-related proteins Bax and cleaved-caspase-3 and decrease Bcl-2 expression. Importantly, APEX1 was positively correlated with miR-24 expression.

APEX1 promotes ESC proliferation and inhibits apoptosis by upregulating miR-24 expression. Similar content being viewed by others Data availability The datasets used or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. Change history 13 February 2026 This article has been retracted. Please see the Retraction Notice for more detail: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-026-08363-w

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Author information Authors and Affiliations Contributions ALT: protocol/project development; data collection or management; manuscript writing/editing. PR: data collection or management; data analysis; supervision. PXS: data analysis; manuscript writing/editing. Corresponding author Ethics declarations Conflict of interest The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Ethics approval All participants signed written informed consents and the protocol was approved by the Ethics Committees of the Wuhan University Renmin Hospital. Consent to participate All participants signed written informed consents and the protocol was approved by the Ethics Committees of the Wuhan University Renmin Hospital. Additional information Publisher's Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This article has been retracted. Please see the retraction notice for more detail: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-026-08363-w Rights and permissions Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law. About this article Cite this article Tan, A., Ruan, P. & Sun, P. RETRACTED ARTICLE: APEX1/miR-24 axis: a promising therapeutic target in endometriosis. Arch Gynecol Obstet 304, 131–141 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-021-05963-6 Received: Accepted: Published: Version of record: Issue date: DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-021-05963-6