Pyroptotic T-cell-derived active IL-16 has a driving function in endometriosis development

Endometriosis is a common, chronic inflammatory condition that frequently results in pain and infertility and is estimated to affect 6–10% of women of reproductive age. However, the mechanisms underlying the induction of inflammation in endometriosis remain unclear. Here, we identified that ectopic endometrial T-cell-derived active interleukin (IL)-16 acts as an inflammation-driving cytokine in endometriosis. Furthermore, we found that in ectopic endometrial T cells, the activation of IL-16 requires iron overload-induced caspase-3 activity and that the release of active IL-16 is reliant on GSDME-mediated pyroptosis. These observations suggest that active IL-16 may represent a promising target in the treatment of endometriosis. Overall design: In this dataset contains 1 cases of transcriptome information from 3 normal endometrial tissue of patients with uterine leiomyoma (NE_1), 1 cases from ectopic endometrial tissue samples of patients with endometriosis (EE).