Research Article Ecto-nucleotidases Activities in the Contents of Ovarian Endometriomas: Potential Biomarkers of Endometriosis Laura Texidó, 1 Claudia Romero, 1 August Vidal, 1,2,3 José García-Valero, 4 M. Eulalia Fernández Montoli, 2,5 Núria Baixeras, 2,3 Enric Condom, 1,2,3 Jordi Ponce, 2,5 Amparo García-Tejedor, 2,5 and Mireia Martín-Satué 1,2 1 Departament de Patologia i Terap` eutica Experimental, Facultat de Medicina, Universitat de Barcelona, Campus de Bellvitge, L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, 08907 Barcelona, Spain 2 Institut d’Investigaci´ o Biom` edica de Bellvitge (IDIBELL), Barcelona, Spain 3 Servei d’Anatomia Patol` ogica, Hospital de Bellvitge, Barcelona, Spain 4 Departament de Biologia Cel⋅lular, Facultat de Biologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain 5 Servei de Ginecologia, Hospital de Bellvitge, L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, 08907 Barcelona, Spain Correspondence should be addressed to Amparo Garc´ ıa-Tejedor; agarciat@bellvitgehospital.cat and Mireia Mart´ ın-Satu´ e; martinsatue@ub.edu Received 29 May 2014; Accepted 8 August 2014; Published 3 September 2014 Academic Editor: Jean S´ evigny Copyright © 2014 Laura Texid´ o et al. his is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Endometriosis, deined as the growth of endometrial tissue outside the uterus, is a common gynecologic condition afecting millions of women worldwide. It is an inlammatory, estrogen-dependent complex disorder, with broad symptomatic variability, pelvic pain, and infertility being the main characteristics. Ovarian endometriomas are frequently developed in women with endometriosis. Late diagnosis is one of the main problems of endometriosis; thus, it is important to identify biomarkers for early diagnosis. he aim of the present work is to evaluate the ecto-nucleotidases activities in the contents of endometriomas. hese enzymes, through the regulation of extracellular ATP and adenosine levels, are key enzymes in inlammatory processes, and their expression has been previously characterized in human endometrium. To achieve our objective, the echo-guided aspirated luids of endometriomas were analyzed by evaluating the ecto-nucleotidases activities and compared with simple cysts. Our results show that enzyme activities are quantiiable in the ovarian cysts aspirates and that endometriomas show signiicantly higher ecto-nucleotidases activities than simple cysts (5.5-fold increase for ATPase and 20-fold for ADPase), thus being possible candidates for new endometriosis biomarkers. Moreover, we demonstrate the presence of ecto-nucleotidases bearing exosomes in these luids. hese results add up to the knowledge of the physiopathologic mechanisms underlying endometriosis and, open up a promising new ield of study. 1. Introduction Endometriosis is a chronic condition characterized by the presence of endometrial tissue (stroma and glands) outside the uterine cavity, mostly on pelvic peritoneum and ovaries. It afects up to 15% of women of reproductive age and its preva- lence is rising. It is an inlammatory, estrogen-dependent complex disorder, with broad symptomatic variability, pelvic pain, and infertility being the main characteristics. Both symptoms are thought to be the result of an excessive inlammatory environment not only within the pelvis but also in the eutopic endometrium, afecting implantation [1, 2]. It is one of the principal causes of infertility in women. Late diagnosis is one of the main problems of this pathology, taking between ive and ten years from detection of the irst symptoms. herefore, there is a need to identify biomarkers for early diagnosis of endometriosis [3]. Ovarian endometriomas occur in 17–44% of patients afected by endometriosis [4] and account for 35% of benign ovarian cysts. Endometriomas are also called endometriotic or “chocolate cysts” because of the internal luid blood derived dark color [5]. Although the risk of malignant transformation is low, 0.6–0.8% [6], surgery has become the gold standard therapy. Nowadays, laparoscopic cystectomy is Hindawi Publishing Corporation Mediators of Inflammation Volume 2014, Article ID 120673, 8 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/120673