Feel so bac: is Fusobacterium the suspect causing endometriosis?

Huan-Tzu Hou; Ting-Chien Lin; Meng-Hsing Wu; Shaw-Jenq Tsai

doi:10.1016/j.molmed.2023.08.003

Feel so bac: is Fusobacterium the suspect causing endometriosis?

Trends Mol Med. 2023 Oct;29(10):780-782. doi: 10.1016/j.molmed.2023.08.003. Epub 2023 Aug 18.

Authors

Huan-Tzu Hou¹, Ting-Chien Lin², Meng-Hsing Wu², Shaw-Jenq Tsai³

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, 1 University Road, Tainan 70101, Taiwan.
² Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, 1 University Road, Tainan 70101, Taiwan.
³ Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, 1 University Road, Tainan 70101, Taiwan; Department of Physiology, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, 1 University Road, Tainan 70101, Taiwan. Electronic address: seantsai@ncku.edu.tw.

PMID: 37599125
DOI: 10.1016/j.molmed.2023.08.003

Abstract

Recent work by Muraoka and colleagues reports that the Gram-negative anaerobic bacterium Fusobacterium nucleatum is detected in the uterus of 64% of women with endometriosis. Fusobacterium infection causes macrophage infiltration, transforming growth factor-β production, and transgelin upregulation in human and mouse endometria as well as endometriotic lesion development in a mouse model of endometriosis.

Keywords: bacterium infection; endometriosis; macrophage infiltration; transforming growth factor-β; transgelin.

MeSH terms

Animals
Base Composition
Endometriosis* / etiology
Female
Fusobacterium*
Humans
Mice
Phylogeny
RNA, Ribosomal, 16S
Sequence Analysis, DNA

Substances

RNA, Ribosomal, 16S