Maenhoudt Nina, De Moor Amber, Vankelecom Hugo
Unit of Stem Cell Research, Cluster of Stem Cell and Developmental Biology, Department of Development and Regeneration, Leuven Stem Cell Institute, 3000 Leuven, Belgium.
J Pers Med. 2022 Jun 27;12(7):1048. doi: 10.3390/jpm12071048.
The endometrium, lining the uterine lumen, is highly essential for human reproduction. Its exceptional remodeling plasticity, including the transformation process to welcome and nest the embryo, is not well understood. Lack of representative and reliable study models allowing the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying endometrium development and biology to be deciphered is an important hurdle to progress in the field. Recently, powerful organoid models have been developed that not only recapitulate endometrial biology such as the menstrual cycle, but also faithfully reproduce diseases of the endometrium such as endometriosis. Moreover, single-cell profiling endeavors of the endometrium in health and disease, and of derived organoids, start to provide deeper insight into cellular complexity and expression specificities, and in resulting tissue processes. This granular portrayal will not only help in understanding endometrium biology and disease, but also in pinning down the tissue's stem cells, at present not yet conclusively defined. Here, we provide a general overview of endometrium development and biology, and the efforts of modeling both the healthy tissue, as well as its key diseased form of endometriosis. The future of modeling and deciphering this key tissue, hidden inside the womb, looks bright.
子宫内膜衬于子宫腔内，对人类生殖至关重要。其非凡的重塑可塑性，包括迎接和容纳胚胎的转化过程，目前尚不清楚。缺乏能够解读子宫内膜发育和生物学潜在分子和细胞机制的代表性和可靠研究模型，是该领域取得进展的一个重要障碍。最近，强大的类器官模型已经被开发出来，它不仅能重现诸如月经周期等子宫内膜生物学现象，还能如实地再现诸如子宫内膜异位症等子宫内膜疾病。此外，对健康和患病状态下的子宫内膜及其衍生类器官进行单细胞分析，开始为细胞复杂性和表达特异性以及由此产生的组织过程提供更深入的见解。这种细致入微的描绘不仅有助于理解子宫内膜生物学和疾病，还有助于确定目前尚未最终明确的该组织干细胞。在这里，我们概述了子宫内膜的发育和生物学，以及对健康组织及其关键疾病形式子宫内膜异位症进行建模的研究成果。对这个隐藏在子宫内的关键组织进行建模和解码的前景十分光明。
