RESUMO
Endometriosis [EM]is one of the most frequent diseases in gynecology; endometriotic cells display invasive characteristics, despite their benign histological appearance. Epithelial-cadherin [E-cadherin] is a cell-cell adhesive molecule which maintains cell integrity and communication between the intracellular and extracellular world. We investigated the relation between E-cadherin gene 3'-untranslated region [3'-UTR] C/T polymorphism and EM in 100 Egyptian women with EM and 100 women without EM. The polymerase chain reaction based restriction fragment length polymorphism was used to identify the digestible [C] and undigestible [T] polymorphism and compare the genotypes and allelic frequencies of this gene in both groups. The C allele frequency was significantly higher in the EM group than in the control group [odds ratio = 4.38, 95% confidence interval = 2.78-6.90], and the C/C and C/T genotype frequencies were significantly higher in the EM group than in the control group. E-cadherin gene 3'-UTR C/T polymorphism is a useful marker for predicting susceptibility to EM