Determination of the transcript profile of human endometrium

The response of the human endometrium to the ovarian hormones, estrogen and progesterone, has been the focus of decades of research. In order to understand this critical aspect of endometrial physiology, we undertook a genome‐wide analysis of transcript abundance and changes in transcript level between normal endometrium in the proliferative and secretory phases of the menstrual cycle. A high‐density, oligonucleotide gene array, comprising 60 000 gene targets, was used to define the gene expression profile of proliferative and secretory phase endometrium. Results from the arrays were verified using real‐time PCR. The expression levels of 149 transcripts differed significantly between the two phases of the cycle determined by stringent range limits (99.99%), calculated using local variance values. These transcripts include previously documented steroidally responsive genes (such as placental protein 14 and stromelysin‐3) and novel transcripts not previously linked to either endometrial physiology or steroid regulation (such as intestinal trefoil factor and a number of expressed sequence tags). Examination of the 5′ promoter regions of these genes identified many putative estrogen and progesterone receptor DNA binding domains, suggesting a direct response of these genes to the ovarian hormones.