子宫内膜异位症相关生物标志物的研究进展

Research Progress of Biomarkers Related to Endometriosis

子宫内膜异位症(endometriosis,EMs)是子宫内膜的腺体和间质组织种植于子宫腔外的一种慢性的、激素依赖性疾病,已成为妇科常见的疾病之一。由于该病的发病机制尚不清楚,EMs的临床诊断和治疗仍缺乏足够敏感和特异的体征、症状以及可用于血液检测的生物标志物,因此寻找更有效的非侵入性诊断方法对提高EMs患者的临床疗效提供了新思路。EMs慢性炎症过程中涉及的激素、细胞因子、肿瘤相关的糖类抗原、表观调控相关的分子标志物、循环子宫内膜细胞等已在EMs的发病机制中得到了广泛的研究,寻找高敏感度和特异度的EMs生物标志物作为EMs诊断和监测的辅助手段具有重要的意义。随着分子生物学和生物信息学方法的发展,利用高通量组学技术有望挖掘出与EMs相关的特异分子标志物。

Endometriosis(EMs)is a common gynecologic disease and characterized as a chronic and hormone-dependent disease in which endometrial glands and interstitial tissue are implanted outside the uterine cavity.Despite decades of research,there are no sufficiently sensitive and specific signs and symptoms nor accepted biomarkers for the clinical definitively diagnosis of EMs,which hampers prompt diagnosis and treatment.To identify more effective non-invasive diagnostic biomarkers may provide a new thought for improving the clinical efficacy of EMs patients.Hormones,cytokines,chemokines,tumor-associated carbohydrate antigens,biomarkers related to epigenetic regulation and circulating endometrial cells involved in the chronic inflammation of EMs have been extensively studied in the pathogenesis of EMs,but currently no one can be a specific biomarker for EMs.It is of great significance to find highly sensitive and specific EMs biomarkers or a group of biomarkers as auxiliary methods for the diagnosis and monitoring of EMs.With the development of molecular biology and bioinformatics methods,screening approach using high-throughput technologies is expected to discover specific molecular markers related to this disease.This article reviews the latest research progress of EMs-related biomarkers.