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Updated: Feb 7, 2026

Isolation of Dendritic Cells from the Human Female Reproductive Tract for Phenotypical and Functional Studies
Published on: March 13, 2018
Introduction: Do microbes in the female reproductive function matter?
1Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, Valencia University & INCLIVA, Valencuia, Spain; Igenomix, Parc Cientific Valencia University, Valencia, Spain; Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, Stanford University, Stanford, California; Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas.
Abstract:
For more than a century, the uterine cavity has been considered a sterile site maintained by the cervical plug. Humans are like coral that need symbiosis with microorganisms to be completely functional. In the era of precision medicine, the endometrial factor and specifically the microbiological view have long been neglected in reproduction, because it was considered an old concept with no potential improvement. In the last decade, important discoveries, led by improving technology, namely next generation sequencing, have been made in the study of microbial communities not only in the vagina but also in the endometrial cavity and its implication in reproductive health and disease, particularly chronic endometritis. From these studies, we have learned that microbes interact with the host cells along the female reproductive tract generating the physical, chemical and biological environment that the embryo will encounter during the peri-implantation period and throughout pregnancy.
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