Extracellular vesicles in endometrial-related diseases: role, potential and challenges

Abstract

Endometrial dysfunction underlies many common gynecologic disorders, such as endometriosis, endometrial cancer, intrauterine adhesions, and endometritis, which affect many women around the world. Extracellular vesicles play an important role in the pathophysiologic process of endometrial-related diseases. Extracellular vesicles are released by cells, which usually act as a form of intercellular communication, affecting biological processes such as fibrosis, angiogenesis, cell proliferation, and inflammatory responses by transferring their own proteins, lipids, RNA transcripts, and DNA for messaging, and play a key role in physiological dynamic homeostasis and disease development. This review combines the studies of the last decade, using the sub-description method to introduce the application of different sources of extracellular vesicles in the diagnosis and treatment of related diseases, and discusses the challenges faced by extracellular vesicles in the diagnostic and therapeutic application of endometriosis-related diseases, with the aim of contributing to our understanding of the mechanism of action of extracellular vesicles and their therapeutic roles, so as to provide a reference for the development of endometriosis-related diseases, as well as their prognosis and treatment.

Keywords

• Endometriosis
• Infertility
• Intrauterine adhesion
• Endometrial cancer
• Endometritis
• Extracellular vesicles