Reproduction Abstracts

Background: Uterine natural killer (uNK) cells are a phenotypically distinct population of tissue-resident immune cells that are reported to regulate vascular remodelling within the endometrium. The mechanisms that control accumulation of uNK cells in the endometrium remain unresolved although there is evidence to suggest that homing and differentiation of peripheral blood NK (pbNK) cells may contribute to the rapid increase in cell numbers during the secretory phase of the me...

Introduction: The endometrium is one of the few adult tissues that heals repeatedly without scarring. On a monthly basis the endometrium undergoes cyclical episodes of proliferation, degeneration, tissue repair and remodelling in response to the ‘injury’ inflicted on it during menstruation. In women, endometrial shedding (menses) is the culmination of a cascade of inflammatory signals between uterine stromal cells and immune cells both of which have key roles in endo...