Figure 1.
Steroid-mediated glandular epithelial-luminal epithelial-stromal cross talk in the uterus. E induces LIF in the glandular epithelium (blue), which acts in a paracrine manner on the luminal epithelium (purple) to activate the JAK/STAT pathway to mediate a shift in junctional integrity required for implantation. Activation of JAK/STAT also promotes proliferation of the stroma (pink) via expression and secretion of EGF family proteins from the luminal epithelium. Dashed lines represent indirect events. LIFR, LIF receptor; EGFR, EGF receptor.