Excerpt
Endometriosis has been reported to increase susceptibility to COVID-19 [
1]. It has been evidenced that women with endometriosis have a higher risk of contracting COVID-19 and developing a more severe infection in comparison to general people [
1]. Thus, it has been suggested that women suffering from endometriosis should be seen as fragile patients, worthy of prior access to COVID-19 vaccination [
1]. Endometriosis represents a complex gynecological disease characterized by multifactorial etiology [
2]. Most recently, non-coding RNAs (miRNAs) have emerged to be associated with the pathophysiology of endometriosis [
2]. miRNAs have been involved in control of immune responses, inflammation, cell proliferation, angiogenesis and tissue remodeling [
2]. A number of miRNAs have been involved in the multifactorial pathogenic process that is related to endometriosis [
2]. Among these, microRNA126 (miR-126) has been advised to play an important role in the development and progression of endometriosis [
2,
3]. The expression level of miR-126 has been proved to be considerably downregulated in ectopic endometrium (ECs) versus eutopic endometrium (EUs) [
2,
3]. miR126 has been observed to decrease comparably with the progression of endometriosis [
3]. Arguably, low expression of miR126 in eutopic endometrial stromal cells of patients suffering from endometriosis has been recognized to lead to increased invasiveness [
3]. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is still a global health threat [
4,
5]. The complexity of COVID-19 caused by the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is still far from being completely comprehended [
5]. Several miRNAs have been discovered to be dysregulated in cells and or animals infected by SARS-CoV2 or in patients with COVID-19 [
4,
5]. miRNAs have been proposed as a hallmark of severity in COVID-19 [
4,
5]. The relative profiles of selected miRNAs in the serum of COVID-19 patients have been proposed as biomarkers for diagnosing and ascertaining the different grades of severity of COVID-19 [
5]. Interestingly, miR-126 has been described as one of the most significant dysregulated miRNAs in COVID-19 [
5]. Intriguingly, it has been verified that the expression level of miR-126 decreases significantly with increasing the grade of the clinical severity of COVID-19 patients [
5]. Interestingly, this pattern has been exactly documented during hospitalization of COVID-19 patients who do not respond to therapy [
5]. All these contentions led me to hypothesize that the expression level of miR-126 may be a junction point between endometriosis and poor disease progression of COVID-19 infection. I conjecture that women with endometriosis may be at a higher risk of developing dangerous symptoms of COVID-19 as a result of downregulation of miR126 taking into account that reduced levels of miR126 contribute to the increased severity of COVID-19 infection. I propose that therapeutic strategies targeting miR-126 may help to manage endometriosis as well as to improve outcome of endometriotic patients with COVID-19. …
