Methods
All participants were 20-37 years old and had regular menstrual cycles of 26-32 days. The abundance of F-actin, alpha smooth muscle actin (αSMA), Ki67, and procollagen type I in DES and endometrial stromal cells (EES) on polyacrylamide gel substrates of varying stiffness (2, 4, 8, 16 and/or 30 kPa) was determined by immunofluorescence confocal microscopy. mRNA level of type I collagen, matrix metalloproteinase-1 (MMP-1), MMP-14 and cyclin D1 was measured by real-time PCR. The cellular proliferation index (CPI), assessed as the percentage of Ki67-positive cells among the total number of nuclei stained by 4',6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) was determined. Main