The Long Non-Coding RNA Gene Plays a Role in Human Endometrial Stromal Fibroblast Decidualization.

During the secretory phase of the menstrual cycle, endometrial fibroblast cells begin to change into large epithelial-like cells called decidual cells in a process called decidualization. This differentiation continues more broadly in the endometrium and forms the decidual tissue during early pregnancy. The cells undergoing decidualization as well as the resulting decidual cells, support successful implantation and placentation during early pregnancy. This study was carried out to identify new potentially important long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) genes that may play a role in human endometrial stromal fibroblast cells (hESF) undergoing decidualization in vitro, and several were found. The expression of nine was further characterized. One of these, , showed a dramatic increase in the expression of hESF cells undergoing decidualization. When expression was targeted, the ability of the cells to undergo decidualization as determined by the expression of decidualization marker protein-coding genes was significantly altered. The most affected markers of decidualization whose expression was significantly reduced were , , and . Therefore, may be a major upstream regulator of the WNT-FOXO1 pathway and activin-SMAD3 pathways previously shown as critical for hESF decidualization. Finally, we explored possible regulators of expression during human ESF decidualization. Expression was regulated by cAMP and progesterone. Our results suggest that plays a role in hESF decidualization and identifies several other lncRNA genes that may also play a role.