Endometrial Integrins

Bruce A. Lessey
In: The Endocrinologist · 1995 · vol. 5(3) , pp. 214–221 · doi:10.1097/00019616-199505000-00008 · W4230722976
Review OA: closed CC0
Full text JSON View on OpenAlex View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by qwen3.7-flash, 2026-08-13 ⓘ

This paper examines endometrial integrins, noting that aberrant expression of the αvβ3 integrin occurs in women with endometriosis and other inflammatory states, potentially serving as a marker for assessing endometrial receptivity and infertility.

One-sentence paraphrase of the abstract; not a substitute for reading it. No clinical advice. How this works

⚙ AI-generated deep summary by qwen3.7-flash, 2026-08-13 · read from full text ⓘ

This review examines the role of endometrial integrins, specifically alpha4beta1 and alphavbeta3, as cell adhesion molecules that undergo temporal changes during the menstrual cycle to facilitate embryonic implantation. The author highlights that aberrant expression of these integrins, particularly alphavbeta3, is associated with infertility in women experiencing hormonal inadequacy or inflammatory conditions such as endometriosis, endometritis, and hydrosalpinges. Because current methods for assessing endometrial receptivity are lacking, the paper proposes that studying these molecular markers could provide a rational approach to diagnosing defects in infertile patients. Relevance to endometriosis: listed as one condition associated with aberrant integrin expression, though the paper's main focus is on endometrial receptivity and implantation mechanisms.

Read from the paper's body, not the abstract. Not a substitute for reading the paper. No clinical advice. How this works

Abstract

The assessment of endometrial function has lagged far behind other clinical examples in the field of endocrinology. Nevertheless, the importance of the endometrium to the establishment normal pregnancy and the associated biochemical complexities in this tissue makes its study of paramount importance. Integrins are a relatively new family of cell adhesion molecules that appear to undergo fascinating temporal and spatial changes in the endometrium throughout the menstrual cycle and into pregnancy suggesting a direct involvement in the process of embryonic implantation. Two integrins, α4β1 and αvβ3, are coex-pressed on endometrial epithelial cells only during the putative window of implantation, and the aberrant expression of the latter appears to predict infertility. Aberrant expression of the avβ3 integrin is found in women with hormonal inadequacy (luteal phase deficiency) and in women with certain inflammatory states (endometriosis, endometritis, and hydrosalpinges). With no currently accepted methods for the assessment of endometrial receptivity, integrins offer a rational means to investigate such defects in the infertile woman. Further, lessons learned from infertile women may lead the way toward improved diagnosis in “unexplained infertility” and safer and more efficacious means of contraception in the future
Full text 1,375 characters · extracted from oa-doi-fallback · click to expand
Endometrial Integrins - Bruce A. Lessey The assessment of endometrial function has lagged far behind other clinical examples in the field of endocrinology. Nevertheless, the importance of the endometrium to the establishment normal pregnancy and the associated biochemical complexities in this tissue makes its study of paramount importance. Integrins are a relatively new family of cell adhesion molecules that appear to undergo fascinating temporal and spatial changes in the endometrium throughout the menstrual cycle and into pregnancy suggesting a direct involvement in the process of embryonic implantation. Two integrins, α4β1 and αvβ3, are coex-pressed on endometrial epithelial cells only during the putative window of implantation, and the aberrant expression of the latter appears to predict infertility. Aberrant expression of the avβ3 integrin is found in women with hormonal inadequacy (luteal phase deficiency) and in women with certain inflammatory states (endometriosis, endometritis, and hydrosalpinges). With no currently accepted methods for the assessment of endometrial receptivity, integrins offer a rational means to investigate such defects in the infertile woman. Further, lessons learned from infertile women may lead the way toward improved diagnosis in “unexplained infertility” and safer and more efficacious means of contraception in the future

Text is read by the "Ask this paper" AI Q&A widget below. Extraction quality varies by source — PMC NXML preserves structure cleanly, OA-HTML may include some navigation residue, and OA-PDF can have broken hyphenation. The publisher copy (via DOI) is the canonical version.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

⚙ Ask this paper AI returns verbatim quotes from the full text · source: oa-doi-fallback ⓘ

Answers must be backed by verbatim quotes from this paper's full text. Hallucinated quotes are dropped automatically; if no verbatim passage answers the question, we say so. How this works

Condition tags

endometriosisinfertility

Citation neighborhood (no data yet)

We don't have any in-corpus citations linked to this paper yet. The paper's references may be in our DB but unresolved to ``paper_id`` (resolution happens at ingest when the cited DOI matches a row we already have). Run the cross-source citation reconcile pass to retry.

Source provenance

openalex
last seen: 2026-06-04T00:00:01.174412+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK