MINI REVIEW article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Molecular Innate Immunity
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1657605
This article is part of the Research TopicDevelopment of Diagnostic and Therapeutic Biomarkers for Tumors and Inflammation Based on Multi-omics Approaches Including Transcriptomics, Proteomics, and MetabolomicsView all 3 articles
Dysfunction of natural killer cells promotes immune escape and disease progression in endometriosis
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Obstetrics, Obstetrics and Gynecology Center, The First Hospital of Jilin University, 1Xinmin Road, Changchun, 130000, Jilin, China, Changchun, China
- 2Department of General Gynecology I, Obstetrics and Gynecology Center，The First Hospital of Jilin University，1Xinmin Road, Changchun, 130000, Jilin, China, Changchun, China
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Endometriosis (EMs) is a chronic inflammatory disorder characterized by dysregulated innate immunity, particularly impaired cytotoxic function of natural killer (NK) cells. As pivotal effectors of the innate immune response, NK cells fail to eliminate ectopic endometrial lesions due to aberrant receptor–ligand interactions, elevated levels of immunosuppressive cytokines (TGF-β, IL-6, and IL-10), and dysfunction of adhesion molecules. This compromised immune surveillance facilitates the survival and implantation of ectopic lesions, contributing to the hallmark symptoms of pain and infertility. Recent immunotherapeutic strategies, including NK cell checkpoint blockade (anti-NKG2A, anti-PD-1), IL-2-based activation, and adoptive NK cell transfer—seek to restore NK cell cytotoxicity and reestablish immune homeostasis. This review summarizes current advances in understanding NK cell dysfunction in EMs, emphasizing its central role in immune evasion and the therapeutic promise of targeting innate immune pathways.
Keywords: Endometriosis, Natural Killer cells, immune surveillance, Cytotoxicity, Cytokines, Immunotherapy
Received: 01 Jul 2025; Accepted: 14 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Jiang, Xu and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Weiyu Jiang, Department of Obstetrics, Obstetrics and Gynecology Center, The First Hospital of Jilin University, 1Xinmin Road, Changchun, 130000, Jilin, China, Changchun, China
Feng Chen, Department of General Gynecology I, Obstetrics and Gynecology Center，The First Hospital of Jilin University，1Xinmin Road, Changchun, 130000, Jilin, China, Changchun, China
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