Search

Displaced window of implantation (WOI) is one of the endometrial origins that accounts for implantation failure, especially for patients with recurrent implantation failure (RIF), yet no standard diagnostic tool has been recognized. The study consists of two parts, aiming to compare the concordance and efficacy of the diagnostic tools, the newly developed RNA-seq based endometrial receptivity test (rsERT) to the conventional pinopode, in diagnosing WOI and guiding personalized embryo transfer (pET). With the same group of RIF patients, the rsERT diagnosed 32 patients (65.31%) with normal WOIs, and most of the displacements were advancements (30.61%). While according to pinopode, only 14 patients (28.57%) were found with normal WOIs, and most patients (63.27%) presented delayed growth patterns. After conducting pET, patients in the rsERT group had higher successful pregnancy rates while requiring fewer ET cycles (50.00% vs. 16.67%, p=0.001). The study proved poor consistency between the diagnostic tools of endometrial receptivity based on cellular structure and gene profiling, and it supported rsERT as a reliable tool with potential clinical value.

Abstract Background SKA1, an important mitosis protein, has been indicated in the initiation and progression of several malignancies. However, its clinical significance in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remain to be elucidated. Methods mRNA expression of SKA1 was examined in 126 HCC and paired non-neoplastic tissues using real-time PCR and validated in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. SKA1 protein expression was detected using immunohistochemistry in the 126 HCC tissues and its associations with clinicopathological parameters and prognosis were analyzed. Hierarchical cluster analysis and gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) were performed in selected Gene Expression Omnibus data sets. Results SKA1 mRNA expression was significantly elevated in HCC tissues from both local hospital and TCGA database. Immunohistochemistry revealed that increased SKA1 expression was present in 65 of the 126 cases and was significantly associated with higher serum alpha-fetoprotein concentration, larger tumor size and higher TNM stage. Patients with positive SKA1 expression showed significantly worse overall and relapse-free survival. Multivariate Cox regression analysis revealed that SKA1 was an independent predictor of patient prognosis. Gene expression profiling analysis of public data showed that high-SKA1 expression HCC tissues had similar gene expression profiles with fetal liver tissues. Moreover, GSEA showed that genes up-regulated in high SKA1 HCC subgroup were significantly enriched in cell cycle pathway, while genes down-regulated were significantly enriched in apoptosis pathway. Conclusions Our findings indicate that the oncofetal gene SKA1 might be involved in the progression of the HCC and could serve as a prognostic marker for HCC.