Objective: An overview of the molecular-genetical aspects of formation and development of leiomyomas of the uterine body.
Design: A review article.
Setting: Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Jessenius Faculty of Medicine in Martin, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovak Republic.
Methods: An analysis of the literature using database search engines PubMed, Blast, Science direct and Web of Knowledge focused on tumorigenesis of leiomyoma.
Results: Benign uterine leiomyomas, also known as myoma, fibroids or fibromyomas are the most common tumours located in the pelvic area of women. The prevalence of this disease reaches, on the global scale, values higher than 50%, depending on the ethnicity even up to 80% of women of reproductive age. Despite such a high value, the origin of leiomyomas is still unknown. The main reason is the heterogeneity of the disease, and a number of factors that influence their development. In the case of leiomyomata occurrence, it has so far been observed several genome rearrangements and a number of aberrantly expressed genes. There are several reasons for overexpression or underexpression of a particular gene, from a point mutation in the exon region of the gene, promoter or other regulatory sequences to epigenetic modifications, most commonly the nature of methylation, or more precisely inadequate regulation short molecule miRNA. Many of these genes belong to the group of tumour-suppressor genes, or more precisely to genes, which can affect the cell cycle in a different way and thus can affect even the cell division. The aim of this work is to describe the various factors influencing the formation of leiomyomas and their impact on tumorigenesis.
Keywords: epigenetics.; fibroid; leiomom; mesenchymal tumour; methylation.