Author Description

This dissertation, "The Association Between MicroRNAs and Progesterone Elevation on the Endometrial Receptivity in In-vitro Fertilization Treatment Cycles" by Xin, Meng,, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Elevated serum progesterone (P4) on the day of human chorionic gonadotrophin (HCG) administration was proven to adversely affect the pregnancy rate in in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment cycles. Recent evidence indicates that this progesterone elevation (PE) does not affect embryo quality but reducing endometrial receptivity. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNA that binds to the complementary 3'-untranslated region of the target gene and inhibits the expression of protein through translation/transcriptional silencing. MiRNAs play significant roles in many physiological and pathological roles in the human body. Previously, it was demonstrated that miR-30b and miR-30d are positively while miR-494 is negatively associated with endometrial receptivity. In this study, endometrial biopsies at window of implantation (HCG+ 6-8) were collected from IVF patients undergoing ovarian stimulation cycle with PE or normal serum P4 level at day of HCG administration. Epithelial and stromal cells were isolated from the biopsy samples and the expressions of miR-30b, -30d and -494 were compared between the two groups. It was found that miR-30b and miR-30d were significantly decreased in the isolated epithelial cells of the PE group while there were no significant differences between stromal cells isolated from the two groups. MiR-494 was not differentially expressed between the two groups in nei