The effects of insulin-like growth factors on the proliferation of endometrial stromal cells from patients with and without endometriosis

Kim, Myung Hee; Lee, Gue Wha; Lee, Yong Hee; Kim, Jung Gu

Abstract

OBJECTIVES
To test the hypothesis that the endometrial stromal cells from patients with endometriosis responds differently to the insulin-like growth factor (IGF) compared with those from patients without endometriosis.
METHODS
IGFs in peritoneal fluid (PF) from patients with endometriosis(n=18) and without endometriosis(n=12;control patients) were measured by radioimmunoassay. Endometrial stromal cells from patients with endometriosis and control patients were cultured in serum free media(SFM) in the presence or absence of PF or IGF-I(0.25-25 ng/ml) or IGF-II(5-50 ng/ml) and the proliferation of endometrial stromal cells were evaluated by [3H] thymidine incorporation test. All statistics were performed by ANOVA test and student's t-test.
RESULTS
When added to SFM, IGF-I(1-25 ng/ml) increased thymidine incorporation in both endometrial stromal cells from patients with endometriosis and control patients in dose dependent manner and IGF-II(5-25 ng/ml) gave similar response in latter cells but not in former cells. Within low IGF-I(less than 100 ng/ml) PF group or high IGF-I(more than 100ng/ml) PF group, the type of endometrial stromal cells did not result in any difference in thymidine incorporation. However, regardless of the source of stromal cells, high IGF-I PF group produced a greater extent of thymidine incorporation than low IGF-I PF group in patients with endometriosis but not in control patients. Also, thymidine incorporation was higher in high IGF-I PF group of former patients than in the same group of latter patients. PF induced higher thymidine incorporation in endometrial stromal cells than the same levels(0.25-2.5 ng/ml) of IGF-I directly added to SFM.
CONCLUSIONS
The effects of IGF-I in PF on endometrial stromal cells are similar regardless of their source and IGF-I is one of several growth factors that may participate in the growth of endometrial stromal cells in pelvic endometriosis.