Single-cell transcriptome analysis uncovers the molecular and cellular characteristics of thin endometrium.

Infertility is a social and medical problem around the world and the incidence continues to rise. Thin endometrium (TE) is a great challenge of infertility treatment, even by in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer. It is widely believed that TE impairs endometrium receptivity. However, only a few studies have explained the molecular mechanism. Herein, in order to reveal the possible mechanism, we sampled endometrium from a TE patient and a control volunteer and got a transcriptomic atlas of 18 775 individual cells which was constructed using single-cell RNA sequencing, and seven cell types have been identified. The cells were acquired during proliferative and secretory phases, respectively. The proportion of epithelial cells and stromal cells showed a significant difference between the TE group and the control group. In addition, differential expressed genes (DEGs) in diverse cell types were revealed, the enriched pathways of DEGs were found closely related to the protein synthesis in TE of both proliferative and secretory phases. Some DEGs can influence cell-type ratio and impaired endometrial receptivity in TE. Furthermore, divergent expression of estrogen receptors 1 and progesterone receptors in stromal and epithelial cells were compared in the TE sample from the control. The cellular and molecular heterogeneity found in this study provided valuable information for disclosing the mechanisms of impaired receptivity in TE. © 2022 The Authors. The FASEB Journal published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.

Citation

Xirong Zhang, Yini Li, Xiaopan Chen, Bihui Jin, Chongyi Shu, Wanmao Ni, Yinshen Jiang, Jing Zhang, Lijia Ma, Jing Shu. Single-cell transcriptome analysis uncovers the molecular and cellular characteristics of thin endometrium. FASEB journal : official publication of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. 2022 Mar;36(3):e22193

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PMID: 35201635

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