Figure 8.

Carbonic anhydrase IX is required to maintain the pathogenic properties of iHEECs. (A) The relative raw abundance of CAIX transcripts in human ectopic and matched control endometrium (from: Gene Expression Omnibus dataset GSE25628 (Crispi et al., 2013)). Note: CAIX transcripts are significantly elevated in human ectopic endometriosis compared with control endometrium (AU denotes arbitrary units). Human control and ectopic endometrial tissues were obtained during the proliferative phase. Data are presented as mean SE (control endometrium: n=6; ectopic endometrium: n=7); *p-value ≤0.05. (B) Immunohistochemical analysis shows that CAIX is undetectable in the baboon eutopic endometrium (top and bottom left panels represent two separate baboon eutopic endometrial tissues). Ectopic endometriotic lesions (right panels (top and bottom)) express CAIX that is restricted to epithelial cells (white arrowhead); “S” indicates stromal compartment. The scale bar shown in left top panel applies to all four panels in (B). (C-H) Cell viability, clonogenic survival, and wound healing assays respectively show that CAIX depletion in iHEECs results in a compromised ability to proliferate, form colonies, and migrate—all pathogenic properties of iHEECs. Results are represented as mean ± SE and representative of three independent experiments; *p-value<0.05, ***p-value<0.001 and ****p-value<0.0001.