Studies on the Immune Function of Patients with Endometriosis

子宫内膜异位症被认为是一种自身免疫性疾病，根据最近的报道，在子宫内膜异位症患者中检测到针对子宫内膜的抗体，并且子宫内膜异位症可能与免疫功能异常有关。为了阐明子宫内膜异位症与免疫功能障碍和抗子宫内膜间质细胞表面抗原抗体的关系，对子宫内膜异位症患者外周血中的自身抗体，包括抗子宫内膜抗体，淋巴细胞亚群，免疫球蛋白和补体水平进行了研究。此外，还检测了患者血清对健康男性志愿者淋巴细胞自然杀伤（NK）活性的影响。以子宫内膜间质细胞为抗原，建立了检测抗子宫内膜抗体的细胞ELISA方法。除抗子宫内膜抗体外，子宫内膜异位症患者与女性对照组之间无显著性差异，表明子宫内膜异位症患者不伴有明显的免疫功能异常。然而，从志愿者中获得的淋巴细胞的NK活性在与子宫内膜异位症患者血清孵育18小时后与对照妇女血清相比显著降低，这表明子宫内膜异位症患者血清中的某些抑制因子的诱导。本研究发现，部分子宫内膜异位症患者存在抗子宫内膜抗体和抑制第三方淋巴细胞NK活性的血清因子，但外周血检测无明显免疫学异常。

Endometriosis has been suggested to be a kind of autoimmune disease, on the basis of recent reports demonstrating that antibodies against the endometrium were detected in patients with endometriosis and that endometriosis may be associated with abnormalities in immune function. To clarify the relationship of endometriosis to the immune dysfunction and presence of antibodies against the surface antigens of endometrial stromal cells, autoantibodies including antiendometrial antibodies, lymphocyte subsets, and levels of immunoglobulins and compliments in peripheral blood of endometriosis patients were investigated. In addition, the effect of patients' sera on natural killer (NK) activity of lymphocytes of healthy male volunteers were examined. The cell ELISA to detect antiendometrial antibodies was established using endometrial stromal cells as antigens which were obtained from hysterectomized uterus. There was no significant difference between the patients with endometriosis and the female controls except for antiendometrial antibodies, indicating that patients with endometriosis are not accompanied with apparent abnormalities in the immune function. However, the NK activity of lymphocytes obtained from volunteers was significantly decreased after 18 hours incubation with sera of endometriosis patients as compared with sera of control women, suggesting the induction of some suppressive factor (s) in sera of endometriosis patients. Present study revealed that some of the endometriosis patients develop antiendometrial antibodies and some serum factor (s) inhibiting NK activity of third party's lymphocytes, however, no obvious immunological deviation detectable by peripheral blood is present in endometriosis.