This protein may help explain why some women with endometriosis are infertile
Having a reduced amount of HDAC3 renders mice sterile
A missing protein may help explain why some women with endometriosis are infertile.
In samples of lining from the uterus, infertile women with the disorder had lower amounts of a protein called histone deacetylase 3, or HDAC3, than fertile women without endometriosis, a study finds. When mice were engineered to have a decreased amount of HDAC3 in the uterus, the animals became sterile, researchers report online January 9 in Science Translational Medicine.
The new work brings scientists a step closer to understanding what’s driving infertility in women with endometriosis, says Linda Giudice, a reproductive endocrinologist at the University of California, San Francisco who was not involved in the study. Such research could potentially offer ways to improve these women’s ability to become pregnant, she says.