Identification of FZD7 as a potential ferroptosis-related diagnostic gene in endometriosis by bioinformatics analysis

An increasing number of research have suggested that ferroptosis plays an important role in endometriosis (EMS). This study was to identify a ferroptosis-related diagnosis gene in EMS by using bioinformatics. R Bioconductor package limma was used to analyzed the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between the EMS groups and control groups. CIBERSORT was used to analyze the differences between the EMS group and control group of 22 immune cells. Quantitative real-time PCR (RT-qPCR) and Western blot (WB) were used to validate the expression level of FZD7 in tissue samples. The study found that FZD7 was upregulated and showed good diagnostic value in five EMS transcriptome databases. RT-qPCR and WB experiments also verified that FZD7 was upregulated in EMS. Moreover, we found that macrophages, especially M2 macrophages, were significantly infiltrated in EMS. FZD7 was positively correlated with M2 macrophage infiltration, and was up-regulated in the endometrial stromal cells co-cultured with macrophages. The study identified an ferroptosis repressor gene, FZD7, validated in five EMS transcriptome datasets, which is significantly up-regulated in ectopic lesions of EMS and is a potential target for the treatment of EMS.