Progestins, progesterone receptor modulators, and progesterone antagonists change VEGF release of endometrial cells in culture

The influences of the synthetic progestin, medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA), the progesterone receptor modulator J867, and the antagonist ZK137316 were studied in vitro on isolated endometrial epithelial cells, as well as endometrial fibroblasts. We evaluated the expression of estrogen receptor α (ER) and the progesterone receptor (PR) by RT-PCR. ER and PR were strongly expressed in the fibroblasts and epithelial cells under treatment with 10 −8 M 17β-estradiol (E 2). Treatment with 10 −6 M J867 or ZK137316 upregulated the PR expression as did E 2, in contrast to treatment with 10 −6 M MPA, which caused a downregulation of PR in epithelial cells, but not in fibroblasts. In addition, the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) release into the cell culture medium was analyzed by a VEGF-ELISA. VEGF which plays an important role in angiogenesis, is regulated by steroid hormones as well as hypoxia. E 2 stimulates VEGF release into the medium in both cell types. MPA reduces VEGF release significantly in the fibroblast cell culture, but increases it in the epithelial cell culture. ZK137316, in the presence or absence of E 2, reduces VEGF release in fibroblast cell culture. J867 increases the VEGF production in fibroblasts only in the presence of E 2. Both compounds show no significant effects, compared to E 2, in epithelial cell culture. The different results for the epithelial cells and fibroblasts indicate that the pharmacological effects of PR modulators (PRMs) and progesterone antagonists (PAs) may be cell specific and depend on the presence or absence of partial progestagenic agonistic activities. This observation opens up new perspectives for various clinical applications.