Fig. 2
β-E2 induced adenomyotic endometrial stromal cell angiogenesis in vitro. a. b. Assessment of pro-angiogenetic ability of adenomyotic and normal endometrial stromal cells with or without β-E2. c. d. Tube and network formation assay of HUVEC cells treated with conditioned media (the whole cell filtrate from ADS_Eu_ESC and ADS_Ec_ESC added with either E2 (10nM) or Fulvestrant (10 nM) or both. Images were captured when HUVEC were cultured with the conditioned media on Matrigel for 6 h. Branch points of capillaries were counted and analyzed. Scale bar = 100 μm. e. f. Western blot detection of angiogenesis-related proteins including VEGFB and ANGPTL4 in ADS_Eu_ESC and ADS_Ec_ESC cells after being treated with E2 (10nM) or Fulvestrant (10 nM). GAPDH was used as a loading control. Data were presented as mean ± SD. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001. HUVEC, human umbilical vein endothelial cells