Gene expression profiling of C/EBPβ- and STAT3-deficient human endometrial stromal cells (HESC)

Our previous studies have shown that C/EBPβ plays a critical role in human endometrial stromal decidualization. In order to identify the molecular pathways regulated by C/EBPβ during decidualization, we performed gene expression profiling using RNA isolated from normal and C/EBPβ-deficient human endometrial stromal cells. The microarray results revealed that several key regulators of stromal differentiation, such as BMP2, Wnt4, IL-11Rα and STAT3, operate downstream of C/EBPβ during decidualization. Further studies revealed that STAT3 is a direct target of C/EBPβ and plays an important role in cytokine signal during the decidualization process. Gene expression profiling, using STAT3-deficient HESCs, showed an extensive overlap of pathways downstream of STAT3 and C/EBPβ during stromal cell differentiation. We employed a siRNA strategy to suppress C/EBPβ or STAT3 mRNA expression in HESCs and then performed microarray analysis to identify its downstream target genes. Further, using a similar strategy, we focused on STAT3, a C/EBPβ target gene, and identified the commone pathways downstream of both C/EBPβ and STAT3.