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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Aug 4.
Published in final edited form as: Curr Mol Med. 2016;16(3):252–265. doi: 10.2174/1566524016666160225153307

Figure 3. Reduced or mislocalized p27 is a common feature in normal follicular phase endometrium, endometrial CAH and primary endometrial carcinoma (EC) from obese women.

Figure 3

(A) The scoring system used to define immunohistochemical expression of p27 is defined as (a) intact, (b) slightly reduced, (c) moderately reduced or (d) severely reduced. More specifically, intact p27 expression is defined as diffuse nuclear expression present in >75% of all endometrial glands; expression may be reduced in <25% of glands but is never completely absent. Slightly reduced p27 expression is defined as diffuse nuclear expression present in <75% of all endometrial glands; expression may be slightly reduced in >25% of glands but is never absent. Moderately reduced p27 expression is defined as diffuse nuclear expression present in <50% of all endometrial glands; expression is reduced in >25% of glands but is never absent. Severely reduced p27 expression is defined as diffuse nuclear expression present in <75% of endometrial glands and expression is completely absent in >25% of all glands. Benign follicular phase endometrium from lean women (n=14) showed intact (a), slightly reduced (b) or moderately reduced (c) p27 levels with nuclear p27 expression never absent in endometrial glands. 19% of benign follicular phase endometrium from obese women had severely reduced (d) p27 levels including >25% of glands with entirely absent nuclear p27 expression. Arrows indicate endometrial glandular epithelium with either “diffuse”, “reduced” or “absent” nuclear p27 expression. Original magnification, ×200. (B) p27 expression was intact or only slightly reduced in a majority of cases of normal luteal phase endometrium (6 out of 6 biopsies; 100%), moderately reduced in normal follicular endometrium from normal weight women (4 out of 14 biopsies; 29%) and moderately or severely reduced in normal follicular endometrium from obese women (21 out of 47 biopsies; 45%). (C) Nuclear p27 was severely reduced with >25% of endometrial glands completely absent of p27 expression in 73% of endometrial CAH biopsies and in 89% of primary endometrial carcinoma biopsies. Original magnification, ×200.