miR-143-3p inhibits ESC proliferation and invasion by repressing ATG2B. (A) The binding sites between miR-143-3p and the 3′-UTR of ATG2B. (B) The luciferase reporter assay was performed in ESCs co-transfected with miR-143-3p mimic or negative control, pGL3-ATG2B-3′-UTR-WT or pGL3-ATG2B-3′-UTR-mut and pRL-TK. **P<0.001 vs. control. (C) ATG2B protein expression levels were determined via western blotting and semi-quantified. (D) Transfection efficiency of pcDNA-ATG2B. Compared with the control group, miR-143-3p overexpression repressed ESC (E) proliferation and (F) invasion, whereas ATG2B overexpression reversed miR-143-3p-mimic mediated effects. (G) ATG2B mRNA expression levels in ESCs and NESCs isolated from endometriosis model mice. *P<0.05 and **P<0.01 vs. control or NESCs. miR, microRNA; ESC, endometriotic stromal cell; ATG2B, autophagy-related 2B; UTR, untranslated region; WT, wild-type; mut, mutant; CCK-8, Cell Counting Kit-8; OD, optical density; NESC, normal endometrial stromal cell; cont, control.