The Expression Of Livin In Endometriosis And Its Relationships With Survivin And Caspase-3

Objective: The exact pathophysiology of endometriosis had not been completely understood. In recent years, the relationship between endometriosis and apoptosis had being realized. The apoptosis abnormality of the patients with endometriosis had direct effect in plantation, adhesion and hyperplasia of ectopic endometrial tissues. The abnormal expression of surviving and caspase-3 play an important role in the occurrence and development of endometriosis. Livin gene was a newly identified inhibitor of apoptosis(IAPs). The antiapoptosis ability of Livin was stronger than that of surviving. Livin may be identified as a potential targets for apoptosis-inducing therapy of endometriosis. At present, there were no papers about Livin expression in endometriosis and it was not clear about the correlation between its expression and clinical pathology. In order to investigate the possible mechanism of endometriosis, the in situ hybridization method and the immunohistochemical method were used to examine the expression of Livin, surviving and caspase-3 in 40 patients with endometriosis and 25 without endometriosis.Methods: Patients with endometriosis (n=40) accepted operation and the sepciman were collected at gynecological department of the Second Affiliated Hospital of ShanXi Medical University, the 25 normal endiometrium tissues were studied as controls. We examined the expression of Livin in normal endometrium ,ectopic and eutopic endometrial tissues by the in situ hybridization method .At the same time, we examined the expression of surviving and caspase-3 in the same tissues. To discussion the relationship between Livin, survivin and caspase-3, and the relationship between the three gene with endometriosis, the study used the Digital Imaging System to exam the average gray value of production of Livin, surviving and caspase-3 positive reactivity.Results:1. Livin, survivin, caspase-3 were expressed in very degree of all samples from patiens with endometriosis and healthy controls. Livin mRNA and survivin were significantly more pronounced in endometriosis than in the control group, while caspase-3 was significantly more weaker in endometriosis than that of control group. There were no significant difference between ectopic endometrium and eutopic endometrium of endometriosis.2. There was no significant difference in the expression level of Livin, survivin,caspase-3 between proliferative and secretory phase in all three groups.3. There was increased Livin, survivin and caspase-3 in both I??II stage and III??IV stage of endometriosis, but no difference was found. No statistically significant difference were found in the expression of Livin, survivin and caspase-3 between different regions of ectopic endometrium.4. Positive correlation was found between the expression of Livin mRNA and surviving in the endometrium tissue, while there was inverse correlation between the Livin mRNA and caspase-3, the expression of surviving correlated negatively to that of caspase-3, too.Conclusion: In enodmetriosis, Livin expression and surviving expression were higher and caspase-3 was lower, which showed the balance between the apoptosis and reproductivity was broken. Livin, surviving and caspase-3 took together part in the occurrence and development of endometriosis. There was no correlation between the expression of Livin mRNA, surviving and caspase-3 with menstrual cycle, clinical stage and location.