Fractalkine and apoptotic/anti-apoptotic markers in granulosa cells of women with polycystic ovarian syndrome

Abstract

Purpose: Owing to the role of fractalkine in regulating cellular apoptosis/proliferation, ‎we investigated fractalkine effects on apoptosis/proliferation signaling of GCs in polycystic ‎ovarian syndrome ‎ (PCOS) patients through in vitro and in vivo experiments. ‎ Methods: In vivo, 40 women undergoing oocyte retrieval (20 controls and 20 PCOS) were recruited and the GCs were collected. The expression levels of fractalkine, BAX, Bcl2, Bcl2-XL, Bad, and TNF-α ‎were assessed using RT-PCR. . Further, in vitro, we determined the effect of different doses of fractalkine on the expression of the abovementioned genes in GCs of healthy and PCOS women. Results: We found that the expression levels of fractalkine and Bcl-2 were significantly lower in the GCs of PCOS patients compared to the control group (p<0.05). In contrast, the expression levels of TNF-α and BAX were higher in the patient's group than in the control group. The results suggested that expression levels of fractalkine were negatively and positively correlated with the number of oocytes and the number of fertilized oocytes respectively. We found that fractalkine could dose-dependently increase fractalkine and decrease BAD, BAX, Bcl-xl, and TNF-α expressions in the control GCs. In contrast, GCs collected from PCOS patients revealed an increase in expression of BAD, BAX, and Bcl-xl following fractalkine treatment.