Correlation of polypeptide N-acetylgalactosamine transferases-3 and -6 to different stages of endometriosis

Purpose To investigate the expression patterns of N-acetyl galactosamine transferases (GalNAc-Ts)-3 and GalNAc-T6 in clinicopathologically characterized endometriosis (EMS), and to explore their clinical significance.

Ectopic and eutopic endometrial tissue samples were obtained and confirmed with CD-10 immunohistochemistry in patients with EMS (n = 12), whereas normal control endometrium was obtained from patients with uterine septum (n = 12). The mRNA and protein levels of GalNAc-T3 and GalNAc-T6 were detected in these samples using quantitative real-time PCR, immunohistochemistry, and western blotting.

GalNAc-T3 and GalNAc-T6 were expressed in the endometrium of all groups, with no significant changes observed during the menstrual cycle. The expression of GalNAc-T3 and GalNAc-T6 in ectopic endometrium was significantly lower than that in eutopic (P < 0.05) or control endometrium (P 0.05) between eutopic and control endometria. Furthermore, the expression of GalNAc-T3 and GalNAc-T6 was significantly lower in patients with stage III/IV EMS compared to patients with stage I/II (P < 0.05).

Both GalNAc-T3 and GalNAc-T6 expression levels were downregulated in ectopic endometrium, which may increase the adhesion and invasion of endometrial cells and contribute to the development of EMS. Moreover, we found a strong correlation between the expression of GalNAc-T3 and GalNAc-T6 and different stages of EMS. Similar content being viewed by others

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The authors thank the women who participated in our study. The authors also wish to acknowledge the contribution of colleagues and the support of Women’s Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine. Authors’ contributions XX: Project development, Data Collection, Manuscript writing, XF: Data collection, Data analysis, Manuscript writing, JM: Project development, QY: Data collection or management, CZ: Immunohistochemical experiment, KX: Project development, LJ: Project development, Manuscript editing. Author information Authors and Affiliations Corresponding authors Ethics declarations Conflict of interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. Informed consent Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. Additional information X. Xu and X. Fei contributed equally to this study and should be considered co-first authors. Rights and permissions About this article Cite this article Xu, X., Fei, X., Ma, J. et al. Correlation of polypeptide N-acetylgalactosamine transferases-3 and -6 to different stages of endometriosis. Arch Gynecol Obstet 295, 1413–1419 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-017-4344-6 Received: Accepted: Published: Issue date: DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-017-4344-6