Expression and clinical significance of SnoN, TGF-β1 and Smad4 in endometrium of patients with severe intrauterine adhesion

Abstract

Objective To investigate the role of ski-related novel protein N (SnoN) in the pathogenesis of intrauterine adhesion (IUA) and its association with transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1) and Smad4 in endometrial tissue in IUA patients. Methods Endometrial tissues of 20 severe IUA patients (sIUA group) and 20 healthy women with uterine septum (control group) were collected from our 2 departments during January 2019 and October 2020. Immunohistochemical assay, Western blotting and reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) were used to detect the expression of SnoN, TGF-β1 and Smad4 in the endometrial tissue of the control and sIUA groups. The correlations of their expression levels in the endometrial tissues were analyzed with Spearman rank correlation analysis to investigate the association of the levels and IUA. Results The expression levels of TGF-β1 and Smad4 were significantly higher, while that of SnoN was obviously lower in the sIUA group than the control group (all P < 0.01). In the endometrial tissues from the sIUA group, the expression of Smad4 was positively correlated with that of TGF-β1 (r=0.468 9, P < 0.05). However, the TGF-β1 expression was negatively correlated with that of SnoN (r=-0.483 5, P < 0.05). Conclusion SnoN may be involved in the pathogenesis of IUA via the TGF-β1/Smad4 signal pathway.

Keywords

• ski-related novel protein n
• tgf-β1/smad4
• severe intrauterine adhesion