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8 April 2015 Systemic Morphine Treatment Derails Normal Uterine Receptivity, Leading to Embryo Implantation Failure in Mice
Xiaofang Tang, Yongjie Chen, Hao Ran, Yufei Jiang, Bo He, Bingyan Wang, Shuangbo Kong, Haibin Wang
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Abstract

Morphine is the oldest worldwide well-known opioid agonist used for pain treatment in clinic, and its illicit use is often associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes in humans. Because of recent dramatic increases in nonmedicinal morphine abuse, one emerging issue is the further revelation of the dark side of illicit opioid uses, particularly in early pregnancy events. In this respect, we have demonstrated that opioid signaling is functionally operative during preimplantation embryo development in mice. However, the pathophysiological significance of the opioid system on uterine functions at peri-implantation remained elusive. In the present study, we demonstrated that opioid receptors were spatiotemporally expressed in the uterus during the peri-implantation period. Employing a pharmacological approach combined with embryo transfer experiments, we further observed that although systemic morphine treatment exerts no apparent adverse influence on preimplantation ovarian secretion of progesterone and estrogen, this aberrant activation of opioid signaling by morphine induces impaired luminal epithelial differentiation, decreased stromal cell proliferation, and poor angiogenesis, and thus hampers uterine receptivity and embryo implantation. These novel findings add a new line of evidence to better understand the causes for obvious adverse effects of opioid abuse on pregnancy success in women.

Xiaofang Tang, Yongjie Chen, Hao Ran, Yufei Jiang, Bo He, Bingyan Wang, Shuangbo Kong, and Haibin Wang "Systemic Morphine Treatment Derails Normal Uterine Receptivity, Leading to Embryo Implantation Failure in Mice," Biology of Reproduction 92(5), (8 April 2015). https://doi.org/10.1095/biolreprod.115.128686
Received: 28 January 2015; Accepted: 1 April 2015; Published: 8 April 2015
KEYWORDS
angiogenesis
implantation failure
morphine
Mouse
uterine receptivity
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