Fig. 4: PM exposure reduces the expression of various stem cell markers in endometrial stem cells in vitro.

The inhibitory effects of PM exposure on the expression of the stem cell markers C-MYC, KLF4, NANOG, OCT4, and SOX2 were evaluated by real-time PCR (a). The GEO database was also analyzed to further verify the correlations between increased expression levels of these pluripotency-associated factors and exposure to air pollutants (b). The bar graphs show the average of three independent experiments. Significant differences are presented. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.005, and ***p < 0.001 (two-sample t-test).