Expression of adrenomedullin in the endometrium of the human uterus.

OBJECTIVE

Our purpose was to determine whether adrenomedullin is present in the human uterus.

METHODS

We obtained specimens from five patients with leiomyoma and four patients with endometrial adenocarcinoma who were undergoing abdominal hysterectomy. Tissue sections were stained with antibody against adrenomedullin using an avidin-biotin-peroxidase complex technique. Total RNA from normal and cancerous endometrium, myometrium, and leiomyoma was prepared and analyzed by northern blot methodology.

RESULTS

Sections stained with an antibody to adrenomedullin showed prominent expression of adrenomedullin in the normal and cancerous endometrial epithelial cells. Northern blot analysis showed that normal and cancerous endometrium expressed the messenger RNA (mRNA) for adrenomedullin and that the size of the mRNA transcript was 1.6 kilobases (kb). No significant difference was observed between the abundance of mRNA in normal and cancerous endometrium.

CONCLUSION

The findings in this study demonstrated that both adrenomedullin protein and mRNA are present in normal and carcinomatous endometrium of the human uterus.