Title:HOXA10 Expressing UCMSCs Transplantation Improved Endometrial
Receptivity on Endometrial Injury
Volume: 18
Issue: 7
Author(s): Meixian Wu, Yuanyuan Li, Yiwei Wang, Yifan Li, Jinghui Li, Jing Xie*, Shuang Zhao and Lihua Sun*
Affiliation:
- Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Shanghai East Hospital, Frontier Science Center for Cellular Stemness & Cell
Fate Editing, School of Life Sciences and Technology, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, P.R. China
- Department of Reproductive Medicine Center, Shanghai East Hospital, Tongji University, Shanghai 200123, P.R. China
Keywords:
UCMSCs, HOXA10, lentivirus, endometrial injury, endometrial receptivity, embryo implantation.
Abstract: Background: Endometrial injury is considered the major cause of female infertility. Traditional
therapies such as estrogen substitution therapy are not satisfactory due to individual variation in response
to treatment, thereby warranting the use of alternative strategies such as stem cell therapy. Transplantation
of stem cells, such as umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (UCMSCs), has been shown to
improve endometrial healing. However, due to the effect of the intrauterine environment, the therapeutic
effect of UCMSCs is limited, and its efficacy is unstable. HOXA10, encoded by the HOXA10 gene, plays
an important role in endometrium morphology maintenance, proliferation, differentiation, and embryo
implantation. Moreover, UCMSCs do not show HOXA10 expression.
Objective: Our study aimed to evaluate the therapeutic effects of HOXA10-transfected UCMSCs on endometrial
injury repair in vivo.
Methods: First, we established T10-UCMSCs (UCMSCs transfected with HOXA10) for transplantation.
To establish the endometrial injury model, we injected 95% ethanol into the uterine cavity and transplanted
T10-UCMSCs into the uterine cavity from the cornua uteri. Fourteen days later, uteri were collected
for histological and biochemical analysis of endometrial growth and receptivity.
Results: Our results showed the endometrial receptivity was better in T10-UCMSCs group than in UCMSCs
group, suggesting that HOXA10 could enhance the repairing ability of UCMSCs in the endometrium
injury repair. More importantly, the fertility test showed that more embryos were implanted in the T10-
UCMSCs group.
Conclusion: Our results suggest that UCMSCs with HOXA10 expression could improve the therapeutic
effects on endometrial injury repairing.
