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Endometriosis, as a prevalent gynecological disease, is characterized by the presence of endometrial-like tissue outside the uterus, causing infertility and considerable pain and affecting the quality of life of women. The pathogenic mechanism has not been fully elucidated, and there are no effective biomarkers for endometriosis. In our study, microRNA (miRNA) expression profiling of 10 ectopic endometrial plasma from patients with ovarian endometriosis and 10 normal plasma from healthy controls was analyzed using a microarray. As a result, 114 differentially expressed miRNAs were identified. Among them, 14 miRNAs were significantly downregulated in patients with ovarian endometriosis, which matched the microarray results. The diagnostic value of the 14 downregulated miRNAs in ovarian endometriosis was evaluated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, and hsa-let-7i-5p showed the highest area under the ROC curve (AUC) with a value of 0.900. The target genes of the 14 miRNAs were predicted by miRWalk2.0, and the genes that were targeted by at least 2 of the 14 miRNAs were analyzed by function enrichment. The target genes were significantly enriched in the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathways, such as microRNAs in cancer, bladder cancer, and endocrine resistance pathways, and the Gene Ontology (GO) terms such as nucleobase-containing compound metabolic process, cellular nitrogen compound biosynthetic process, and heterocycle metabolic process. The identified 14 differentially expressed miRNAs could be potential biomarkers and therapeutic targets for the diagnosis and treatment of endometriosis.

We performed an extensive quantitative proteomic analysis on the pooled medulla sample of the 11-week-old spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) compared to age-matched normotensive Wistar rats, using iTRAQ technology coupled with nano two-dimentional liquid chromatography followed by high resolution mass spectrometric abundance indexes techniques. Many differentially expressed proteins identified were involved in energy metabolism, such as mitochondrial part, pyruvate dehydrogenase complex, and respiratory chain. These proteins were included in citrate cycle (TCA cycle), pyruvate metabolism and oxidative phosphorylation. The proteomic analysis and subsequent Western blotting on two independent cohorts of animials indicated that the dysregulation of energy metabolism existed in the medulla of the SHR rats. The differentially expressed proteins in the dysregulation of energy metabolism in the medulla of SHR rats included down-regulated ATP6V1D, ATP6VOA1, ATP5L, DLD proteins and up-regulated AK1 protein. MAO-A protein also exhibited decreased regulation, as well as the other 3 above-mentioned energy-relative proteins (ATP6V1D, ATP5L and DLD proteins) belonging to the heterocycle metabolic process. A receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis on 4 of the differentially expressed proteins respectively resulted in an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.95, 0.90, 0.92, and 0.81 for differentiating the SHR rats from the normotensive rats. This dysfunction in energy metabolism localizes to the medulla, the lower part of brain stem, and is, therefore, likely to contribute to the development, as well as to pathophysiological complications of hypertension.