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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2014 Jul 1.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Med. 2012 Jul 6;18(7):1016–1018. doi: 10.1038/nm.2855

Figure 3.

Figure 3

Epigenetic regulation of the estrogen receptor (ER)β gene and its downstream effects in endometriosis. In endometriotic stromal cells, a dense CpG island at ERβ promoter remains in an unmethylated state. This is associated with the presence of a transcriptional enhancer complex, which activates this promoter. In endometrial stromal cells, in contrast, this CpG island is heavily methylated and suppresses ERβ expression. In endometriotic cells, pathologically high ERβ levels suppress ERα and progesterone receptor (PR) (dotted lines) and stimulate cyclo-oxygenase (COX)2 expression (solid line).