AJP - Regu Fuel your research with LabChart
HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH
 QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced]


     


Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol (October 17, 2007). doi:10.1152/ajpregu.00649.2007
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
294/1/R162    most recent
00649.2007v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Zhang, G.
Right arrow Articles by Berkley, K. J.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Zhang, G.
Right arrow Articles by Berkley, K. J.
Submitted on September 7, 2007
Accepted on October 15, 2007

Endometriosis as a Neurovascular Condition: Estrous Variation in Innervation, Vascularization, and Growth Factor Content of Ectopic Endometrial Cysts in the Rat

Guohua Zhang1, Natalia Dmitrieva1, Yan Liu1, Kristina A. McGinty1, and Karen J. Berkley1*

1 Program in Neuroscience, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, United States

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: kberkley{at}psy.fsu.edu.

Endometriosis is a poorly-understood, estradiol-dependent condition associated with severe pelvic pains and defined by vascularized endometrial growths outside the uterus. Endometriosis is produced in cycling rats by autotransplanting pieces of uterus onto abdominal arteries where they develop into cysts. The surgery induces vaginal and abdominal muscle hyperalgesia, whose severity is greatest in proestrus and nearly absent in estrus. The cysts contain growth factors and cytokines and develop their own sympathetic and sensory C and A{delta} fiber innervation. Here we used quantitative immunostaining and protein array analyses to test the hypothesis that the innervation and growth factor/cytokine content of the cysts, but not the uterine horn contribute to proestrus-to-estrous changes in hyperalgesic severity. If so these characteristics in the cysts, but not the uterine horn, should change with estrous stage. In cysts, the density of sympathetic (but not sensory) neurites and amounts of nerve growth factor (NGF) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) proteins (but not cytokines IL1,IL 6, IL10 or TNF{alpha}) were greater in proestrus than estrus. These changes were accompanied by vascular changes. Both sympathetic and sensory fibers in both stages co-labeled with TrkA, indicating that changes in NGF could act on both afferent and efferent fibers. In contrast with the cysts, no changes occurred in the uterine horn between proestrus and estrus. Together, these results suggest that coordinated proestrus-to-estrus changes in innervation and vascularization of the cysts contribute to similar changes in hyperalgesic severity. The findings also encourage consideration of endometriosis as a neurovascular condition.







HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH
Visit Other APS Journals Online
Copyright © 2007 by the American Physiological Society.