Background: An important cause of female infertility is endometriosis—a disease characterized by the ectopic proliferation of the endometrium. Therefore, endometriosis resembles "autologous transplantation" with "immunological tolerance" to ectopic endometrium, which indicates a violation of immunological regulation. There is a lot of evidence about the important role of immunological regulation for the onset of a successful pregnancy, but the causes of infertility in endometriosis are not entirely clear, especially regarding the role of regulatory endometrial cells, which determined the goal of our study—to evaluate the expression of the transcription factor gene regulating the differentiation of Treg cells—Foxp3 in the tissue of the eutopic endometrium in women with infertility associated with endometriosis.
Methods: Samples of endometrial tissue were collected from 40 women with infertility associated with endometriosis (main group) and 20 women with tubal infertility (control group). The expression of the Foxp3 gene was determined by real-time PCR.
Results: The expression of the Foxp3 gene in the endometrial tissue of women with infertility and endometriosis was significantly reduced compared to the control group (p˂0.001). At the same time, there was no statistically significant difference in Foxp3 gene expression between groups of patients with mild, moderate, and severe stages of endometriosis (p>0.05).
Conclusion: The reduction of Foxp3 gene expression in the endometrial tissue of women with infertility associated with endometriosis may be one of the factors of infertility, although the role in the progression of endometriosis remains unclear. Keywords: infertility, endometriosis, immunoregulation, Foxp3.
