Increased expression of BCL6 gene in endometrial tissues of women with endometriosis

Background: Endometriosis is one of the most common diseases of women in reproductive age which characterized as growth of endometrial glands and stroma outside of the uterine cavity. Some symptoms of endometriosis are pelvic pain, dysmenorrhea, dyspareunia, dysuria and infertility. Different cellular alterations are reported in endometriosis including increased inflammation, cell proliferation, decreased apoptosis and changes in immune cells. B-cell lymphoma 6 (BCL6) is a transcriptional factor that inhibits apoptosis and promote cell proliferation and differentiation. On the other hand, interleukin 6 (IL-6) is one of the inflammatory cytokines and some studies have shown that IL6 level is increased in peritoneal fluid of women with endometriosis. Binding of IL-6 to its receptor recruited signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) and it has been reported that STAT3 upregulates BCL6.Objective: Collectively, the objective of this study was to evaluate BCL6 gene expression in eutopic and ectopic endometrium of women with endometriosis compared with the endometrium of control group.Materials and Methods: In this study, 10 women with endometriosis and 10 women without the disease (control group) who underwent diagnostic laparoscopy at Royan Institute were included. Ectopic endometrial samples were collected during laparoscopy while eutopic and control endometrial samples were collected by pipelle. RNA extraction and cDNA synthesis were done for all tissue samples then gene expression of BCL6 was studied using real time PCR. Data analysis was done using one way ANOVA. P<0.05 was considered statistically significant.Results: The expression level of BCL6 gene was increased in ectopic and eutopic endometrial tissues of women with endometriosis compared with control samples (p<0.05 and p> 0.05 respectively). In addition, BCL6 gene expression was higher in ectopic tissues than eutopic ones in endometriosis group.Conclusion: These results revealed that over-expression of BCL6 gene in endometrial tissues of women with endometriosis could contribute to the pathogenesis of endometriosis.

Keywords:

Endometriosis , BCL6 , Ectopic , Eutopic , Endometrium