Does endometriosis really have premalignant potential? A clonal analysis of laser‐microdissected tissue

Doris Mayr, Gudrun Amann, Christina Siefert, Joachim Diebold, B Anderegg, Birgit Anderegg
FASEB journal : official publication of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology · 2003 · vol. 17(6) , pp. 693–695 · doi:10.1096/fj.02-0562fje · W2116497451
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⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-07 ⓘ

This study used phosphoglycerate kinase-1 gene polymorphism to analyze the clonality of 32 endometriotic tissue samples and found that most foci were polyclonal, challenging previous claims of premalignant potential.

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Abstract

ABSTRACT Since 1925, epidemiological and histological evidence for an association between endometriosis and ovarian neoplasia has accumulated. Recently, publications assaying the clonality of a given cell population have implied endometriosis has premalignant properties. However, the human androgen receptor used as a marker in these studies is of highly questionable reliability due to the instability of its methylation pattern in nonmalignant cells and during the course of malignancy. Therefore, we decided to readdress the question of clonality of endometriotic foci by using an alternative assay based on a polymorphism of the phosphoglycerate kinase‐1 gene. We overcame the limitation to using ovarian cysts (a problem encountered in other studies) by lasermicrodissecting defined tissue fractions of interest. From the 13/29 informative patients, a total of 32 endometriotic samples from various sites was assayed. Only 2/32 samples from different patients bore monoclonal tissue. With one of those cases, we present the first direct evidence of the two morphological endometric compartments comprising a single biphasic developmental unit. Neither monoclonal patient was characterized by any outstanding clinical parameters, including neoplasia. Individual endometriotic foci from the only patient in this study with neoplasia was assayed as being polyclonal. Therefore, former studies stating endometriosis as premalignant have to be cautiously reinterpreted.

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Condition tags

mesh:D004715endometriosis

MeSH descriptors

Endometriosis Precancerous Conditions Clone Cells Clone Cells Deoxyribonucleases, Type II Site-Specific Deoxyribonucleases, Type II Site-Specific Dissection Dissection DNA DNA DNA Endometriosis Endometriosis Female Humans Lasers Ovarian Neoplasms Ovarian Neoplasms Ovarian Neoplasms Phosphoglycerate Kinase

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 (42)

Cited by (30)

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