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• As we observed that several PPP intermediates were upregulated in endometrial tissues after estrogen treatment, it can be hypothesized that estrogen stimulates the activation of pentose phosphate metabolism to promote endometrial cell proliferation.
• Such unexpected results imply that the cell growth promotion function of estrogen not only is highly dependent on activation of the PPP, but also can be regulated by the inhibition of pentose phosphate metabolism.
• It is widely known that ESR complexes can promote the expression of G6pd and the translation of glucose 6 phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) (51–53). G6PD is a critical enzyme in the conversion of glucose 6-phosphate to yield 6-phosphogluconate, and this biochemical reaction is also associated with one molecule of NADP+ being transformed to NADPH. Once...
• we observed that the PPP is perturbed by estrogen; it alters cell proliferation by promoting pentose phosphate pathway metabolism.
• The metabolomic results indicated that estrogen can indeed affect metabolic changes in patient’s endometrial tissues (Figure 1B), and most of them are associated with PPP metabolism. We then checked the metabolic intermediates correlated with the PPP and glycolysis (Figure 1C). Both the glycolysis metabolites (pyruvate, fructose-6-phosphate, fructo...

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