Abstract
Endometriosis is a polygenic and multifactorial gynecology situation which might be associated with angiogenesis. In the current study, we assess the role of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) −2578A/C, and +936C/T polymorphisms in susceptibility to endometriosis and checking the expression of VEGF mRNA in eutopic tissue of endometrium with and without endometriosis. The study was comprised of 300 patients who underwent laparascopic or laparotomy surgery with 100 cases who had confirmed histological diagnosis of endometriosis, and 200 controls with no histological diagnosis of disease. The genotyping of VEGF polymorphisms was done by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR–RFLP) technique and the gene expression in tissue was determined using the Real-Time PCR assay. There was no important difference of allele distribution of the −2578A/C (P = 0.7) and +936C/T (P = 0.5) polymorphisms among endometriosis cases and controls. The study of VEGF expression during the menstrual cycle, showed that endometrial tissue in the case group expressed more VEGF mRNA at the secretory phase compared to the proliferative phase (P = 0.03). Our results suggest that −2578A/C and +936C/T polymorphisms of VEGF did not seem to have impact on endometriosis predisposition in our study population. Also, we did not find any link between VEGF mRNA expression and the risk of endometriosis.
Keywords: Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF); Endometriosis; Polymorphism; Gene expression