This study was performed to investigate the functional roles of hypoxia and HIF-1 α, leading to expression of VEGF and FGF in the pathogenesis of endometriosis.

From September 2005 to february 2006, endometrial stromal cells were obtained from the patients with or without endometrosis at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of Ewha Womans University Dongdaemun Hospital. These cells were cultured and treated with 100uM desferrioxamine (DFO) for 0hr and 2hr. After the extraction of total RNA, RT-PCR was performed and the expression level of HIF-1 α, VEGF and FGF mRNA were measured by β-actin as 1. Statistical analysis was performed by Wilcoxon signed rank test and Mann-Whitney U test (SPSS 12.0 version). A p value of 0.05 was considered as the limit for statistical significance.

Chemical hypoxia condition with DFO in normal endometrium results m the up-regulation of HIF-1 α, but it was significantly decreased in the eutopic endometrium of the patients with endometriosis. The expression of VEGF in normal control group was not changed, but it was increased in endometriosis group under chemical hypoxia. Hypoxia with DFO induced the overexpression of FGF in endometriosis group, compared that it was slightly decreased in normal endometrium.

Hypoxia and subsequent production of HIF-1 α might regulate angiogenesis by the expression of VEGF and FGF, that is related to the pathogenesis of endometriosis. However, further studies are warranted to confirm.

To investigate whether polymorphism of gene encoding estrogen receptor-α is associated with the risk of endometriosis in Korean women.

We investigated 136 patients with histopathologically confirmed endometriosis rAFS stage III/IV and 251 control group women who were surgically proven to have no endometriosis. Polymerase chain reaction(PCR) and restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) of PCR products were done to determine each participant's estrogen receptor-α genotype.

The distridution according to PvuII genetic polymorphism of estrogen receptor-α were as follows. PP, Pp and pp were 14.7%(20 women), 39.0%(53 women) and 46.3%(63 women) in the study group and 13.9%(35 women), 38.6%(98 women) and 47.4%(119 women) in the control group, respectively. There was no significant difference between the study group and the control group.

The results suggest that estrogen receptor-α genetic polymorphism may not be associated with the development of endometriosis in Korean women.