The aetiology of endometriosis is still unclear and to find mechanisms behind the disease development, it is important to study each cell type from endometrium and ectopic lesions independently. The objective of this study was to uncover complete mRNA profiles in uncultured stromal cells from paired samples of endometriomas and eutopic endometrium. High-throughput mRNA sequencing revealed over 1300 dysregulated genes in stromal cells from ectopic lesions, including several novel genes in the context of endometriosis. Functional annotation analysis of differentially expressed genes highlighted pathways related to cell adhesion, extracellular matrix-receptor interaction and complement and coagulation cascade. Most importantly, we found a simultaneous upregulation of complement system components and inhibitors, indicating major imbalances in complement regulation in ectopic stromal cells. We also performed experiments to evaluate the effect of endometriosis patients' peritoneal fluid (PF) on complement system gene expression levels, but no significant impact of PF on, and levels was observed. In conclusion, the use of isolated stromal cells enables to determine gene expression levels without the background interference of other cell types. In the future, a new standard design studying all cell types from endometriotic lesions separately should be applied to reveal novel mechanisms behind endometriosis pathogenesis.

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Introduction Placental transverse relaxation time (T2) assessed by MRI may have the potential to improve the antenatal identification of small for gestational age. The aims of this study were to provide normal values of placental T2 in relation to gestational age at the time of MRI and to explore the correlation between placental T2 and birthweight. Material and methods A mixed cohort of 112 singleton pregnancies was retrieved from our placental MRI research database. MRI was performed at 23.6‐41.3 weeks of gestation in a 1.5T system (TE (8): 50‐440 ms, TR: 4000 ms). Normal pregnancies were defined by uncomplicated pregnancies with normal obstetric outcome and birthweight deviation within ±1 SD of the expected for gestational age. The correlation between placental T2 and birthweight was investigated using the following outcomes; small for gestational age (birthweight ≤−2 SD of the expected for gestational age) and birthweight deviation (birthweight Z‐scores). Results In normal pregnancies (n = 27), placenta T2 showed a significant negative linear correlation with gestational age (r = −.91, P = .0001) being 184 ms ± 15.94 ms (mean ± SD) at 20 weeks of gestation and 89 ms ± 15.94 ms at 40 weeks of gestation. Placental T2 was significantly reduced among small‐for‐gestational‐age pregnancies (mean Z‐score −1.95, P < .001). Moreover, we found a significant positive correlation between placenta T2 deviation (Z‐score) and birthweight deviation (Z‐score) (R2 = .26, P = .0001). Conclusions This study provides normal values of placental T2 to be used in future studies on placental MRI. Placental T2 is closely related to birthweight and may improve the antenatal identification of small‐for‐gestational‐age pregnancies.

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