Pušić Maja, Klančič Teja, Knific Tamara, Vogler Andrej, Schmidt Ronny, Schröder Christoph, Lanišnik Rižner Tea
Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, University of Ljubljana, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University Medical Centre Ljubljana, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
J Pers Med. 2022 May 24;12(6):852. doi: 10.3390/jpm12060852.
Endometriosis is an estrogen-dependent inflammatory disease affecting women in their reproductive age. Due to non-specific symptoms, women with endometriosis are often misdiagnosed or are accurately diagnosed only after several years. Diagnosis of peritoneal endometriosis is especially challenging and relies only on laparoscopic surgery. To date, different molecules have been proposed as potential non-invasive biomarkers of endometriosis; however, none have been confirmed as clinically useful. Therefore, this study aimed to discover novel plasma biomarker candidates for peritoneal endometriosis using an antibody array platform. This study included patients with endometriosis-like symptoms characterized by the absence (controls) or presence of peritoneal endometriosis (cases) after laparoscopic surgery and histological evaluation. Patients were further divided into secretory and proliferative groups, according to the phase of their menstrual cycle. Their plasma samples were collected and analyzed on an antibody array platform targeting more than 1350 proteins with over 1820 antibodies. In the proliferative group, the analysis revealed three differential proteins between cases and controls: ITB3, ITA2B2, and ACVL-1. In the secretory group, none of the examined proteins reached the log-fold change (logFC) and significance thresholds simultaneously. The potential of the identified differential proteins as plasma biomarker candidates for peritoneal endometriosis should be evaluated on a larger cohort, and their role in endometriosis should be investigated in further studies.
子宫内膜异位症是一种雌激素依赖性炎症性疾病，影响育龄期女性。由于症状不具特异性，子宫内膜异位症女性常被误诊，或在数年后才得到准确诊断。腹膜子宫内膜异位症的诊断尤其具有挑战性，且仅依赖腹腔镜手术。迄今为止，已有不同分子被提议作为子宫内膜异位症潜在的非侵入性生物标志物；然而，尚无一种被确认为具有临床实用性。因此，本研究旨在使用抗体阵列平台发现腹膜子宫内膜异位症新的血浆生物标志物候选物。本研究纳入了腹腔镜手术及组织学评估后有或无腹膜子宫内膜异位症（分别为病例组和对照组）的具有子宫内膜异位症样症状的患者。根据月经周期阶段，患者进一步分为分泌期组和增殖期组。收集他们的血浆样本，并在一个靶向1350多种蛋白质、使用1820多种抗体的抗体阵列平台上进行分析。在增殖期组中，分析显示病例组和对照组之间有三种差异蛋白：整合素β3（ITB3）、整合素α2β2（ITA2B2）和激活素样蛋白1（ACVL-1）。在分泌期组中，所检测的蛋白质均未同时达到对数倍变化（logFC）和显著性阈值。所鉴定的差异蛋白作为腹膜子宫内膜异位症血浆生物标志物候选物的潜力应在更大的队列中进行评估，其在子宫内膜异位症中的作用应在进一步研究中进行探究。
