| Owing to the role of fractalkine in regulating cellular apoptosis/proliferation, we investigated fractalkine efects on apoptosis/
proliferation signaling of granulosa cells in polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) patients through in vitro and in vivo experiments. In vivo, granulosa cells were collected from 40 women undergoing oocyte retrieval (20 controls and 20 PCOS). The expression levels of fractalkine, BAX, Bcl2, Bcl2-XL, Bad, and TNF-α were assessed using RT-PCR. In vitro, we determined
the efect of diferent doses of fractalkine on the expression of the above mentioned genes in GCs of both groups. We found
that the expression levels of fractalkine and Bcl-2 were signifcantly 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 fertilized oocytes respectively. Moreover, 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. Our fndings indicated that
insufcient expression of fractalkine in PCOS patients is related with elevated apoptotic and infammatory markers and
reduced anti-apoptotic genes in the GCs. |