Lipidomics reveals altered biosynthetic pathways of glycerophospholipids and cell signaling as biomarkers of the polycystic ovary syndrome

Open Access

Abstract

Purpose: In this work, a non-targeted approach was used to unravel changes in the plasma lipidome of PCOS patients. The aim is to offer new insights in PCOS patients strictly selected in order to avoid confounding factors such as dyslipemia, obesity, altered glucose/insulin metabolism, cardiovascular disease, or cancer. Results: Multivariate statistics revealed a specific lipidomic signature for PCOS patients without associated pathologies. This signature implies changes, mainly by down-regulation, in glycerolipid, glycerophospholipid and sphingolipid metabolism suggesting an altered biosynthetic pathway of glycerophospholipids and cell signaling as second messengers in women with PCOS. Conclusions: Our study confirms that a lipidomic approach discriminates a specific phenotype from PCOS women without associated pathologies from healthy controls. Methods: In a cross-sectional pilot study, data were obtained from 34 subjects, allocated to one of two groups: a) lean, healthy controls (n = 20), b) PCOS patients (n = 14) with diagnosis based on hyperandrogenaemia, oligo-anovulation and abnormal ovaries with small follicular cysts. A detailed biochemical characterization was made and lipidomic profiling was performed via an untargeted approach using LC-ESI-QTOF MS/MS. ; We acknowledge funding from the Fund for Health Research (FIS) and co-funding from the European Regional Development Fund of the European Union (FEDER, 'Una manera de hacer Europa'): PI15/1424, PI16/1083, PI16/0301 and UGP15-193 by FISABIO, to A.H.M, M.R. and V.M.V, respectively. This research was also in part funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, Institute of Health Carlos III (FIS grants PI14/00328), and the Autonomous Government of Catalonia (2017SGR and SLT002/16/00250) to R.P. This study was co-financed by FEDER funds from the European Union ('Una manera de hacer Europa').