Hypoxia-Induced MicroRNA-20a Expression Increases ERK Phosphorylation and Angiogenic Gene Expression in Endometriotic Stromal Cells

Shih‐Chieh Lin, Shih-Chieh Lin, Chih-Chuan Wang, Meng‐Hsing Wu, Meng-Hsing Wu, Shang-Hsun Yang, Shang‐Hsun Yang, Yo-Hua Li, Shaw‐Jenq Tsai, Shaw-Jenq Tsai
The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism · 2012 · vol. 97(8) , pp. E1515–E1523 · doi:10.1210/jc.2012-1450 · PMID:22648654 · W2163380132
article OA: bronze CC0 ⤵ 69 in-corpus citations
📄 Open PDF View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-07 ⓘ

Hypoxia-induced microRNA-20a expression in endometriotic stromal cells increases ERK phosphorylation and angiogenic gene expression by down-regulating dual-specificity phosphatase-2.

One-sentence paraphrase of the abstract; not a substitute for reading it. No clinical advice. How this works

Abstract

CONTEXT: Aberrant activation of MAPK has been implicated to play important roles in pathological processes of endometriosis. However, how MAPK are constitutively activated in endometriotic tissues remains largely unknown. microRNA are small noncoding RNA that regulate the stability or translational efficiency of target mRNA by interacting with the 3' untranslated region. Thus, miRNA are thought to be modulators of the transcriptional response, fine-tuning gene expression. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to evaluate the functional roles of microRNA-20a (miR20a) in MAPK activation and the pathogenesis of endometriosis. DESIGN: miR20a expression was analyzed in nonpaired (endometrium = 17; endometriosis = 37) and paired (n = 12) endometriotic tissues by quantitative RT-PCR. Overexpression of miR20a in eutopic endometrial stromal cells or inhibition of miR20a in ectopic endometriotic stromal cells was used to evaluate its impact on ERK phosphorylation and subsequently angiogenesis- and proliferation-related gene expression. RESULTS: Levels of miR20a were up-regulated in endometriotic stromal cells. Elevation of miR20a was up-regulated by hypoxia inducible factor-1α. The up-regulation of miR20a causes the down-regulation of dual-specificity phosphatase-2, which leads to prolonged ERK phosphorylation and an increase in the expression of several angiogenic genes. Furthermore, the up-regulation of miR20a enhances the prostaglandin E(2)-induced expression of fibroblast growth factor-9, a potent mitogen that stimulates both endothelial and endometrial cell proliferation. CONCLUSION: Our findings provide the novel mechanism that not only functionally links together hypoxic stress, miR20a expression, aberrant ERK phosphorylation, and angiogenesis but also demonstrates that miR20a is an important modulator in the development of endometriosis.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

mesh:D004715endometriosis

MeSH descriptors

Cell Hypoxia Endometriosis Extracellular Signal-Regulated MAP Kinases MicroRNAs Neovascularization, Physiologic Dinoprostone Dinoprostone Dual Specificity Phosphatase 2 Dual Specificity Phosphatase 2 Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometrium Endometrium Extracellular Signal-Regulated MAP Kinases Female Fibroblast Growth Factor 9 Fibroblast Growth Factor 9 Gene Expression Regulation Humans

Citation neighborhood

Papers in the corpus that this work cites (lower rings, blue) and that cite this one (upper rings, green). Dot size scales with the paper's in-corpus citation count — bigger dot = more influential within the endo/adeno field. Click a dot to open that paper. [ expand to 2 hops ] — adds papers reached through this work's immediate citers/citees. Heavier; up to 60 extra dots.

References (34)

Cited by (50)

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-06-04T01:30:01.192114+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-04T00:00:01.174412+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-05-13T22:16:11.197438+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK