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Updated: Aug 25, 2026
Platform for Quantitative Detection of Endometrial Immune Cells Based on Immunohistochemistry and Digital Image Analysis
Published on: October 13, 2023
Expression of macrophage inflammatory protein-3beta in human endometrium throughout the menstrual cycle
Nobue Daikoku1, Kotaro Kitaya, Takeshi Nakayama
1Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, Kajii-cho 465, Kamigyo-ku, Kyoto, Japan 602-8566.
Objective:
To determine the expression of macrophage inhibitory protein-3beta (MIP-3beta), a potential chemoattractant for endometrial natural killer (NK) cells, in the human endometrium.
Design:
An experimental study.
Setting:
University department of obstetrics and gynecology.
Patient(S):
Thirty-seven fertile women with regular menstrual cycles and nonpathological endometrium, undergoing hysterectomy.
Intervention(S):
Endometrium was obtained from operative samples.
Main Outcome Measure(S):
Paraffin-embedded endometrium was immunostained to determine the localization of MIP-3beta. The number of NK cells was counted in 10 nonoverlapping stromal areas. The MIP-3beta concentration in the homogenized endometrium was determined by ELISA.
Result(S):
Immunoreactivity for MIP-3beta was observed in the surface epithelia, glandular epithelia, and stroma with some menstrual cycle-dependent fluctuation. The MIP-3beta concentration was significantly higher in the late secretory phase than in the other phases. It showed a trend toward correlation with the number of endometrial NK cells.
Conclusion(S):
MIP-3beta was expressed in the human endometrium, but our results could not strongly support the hypothesis that MIP-3beta is a potential chemoattractant for endometrial NK cells.
