Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the most prevalent endocrine and metabolic disorder of women of reproductive age. Comprehensive metabolic profiling of women with PCOS across different ethnicities will help in understanding the pathophysiology of this condition.

Methods: The Born in Bradford (BiB) study is a UK longitudinal birth cohort. Profiling of circulating lipids, fatty acids, and metabolites was done by a high-throughput targeted NMR platform (Nightingale Health© (Helsinki, Finland), providing quantitative information on 227 metabolomics. We obtained the PCOS case-control status using the ctv3 codes available as part of the dataset. We used the Mann-Whitney U-test to compare the metabolomics in the PCOS and control population.

Results: The study consisted of 10608 women in the Born in Bradford study with a median age of 28 (25-31) years. The predominant ethnic groups included 3979 participants (37%) with English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish, or British ethnicity, 4250 Pakistani (40%), 405 Indian (3%), and 133 African ethnicities (1%). The study consisted of 276 women with PCOS and 10332 control. The metabolomics analysis showed that several metabolites in the pathways inflammation (Glycoprotein acetyls P<0.0001), Glycolysis related metabolites (Glycerol and Citrate P<0.0001), amino acids (Phenylalanine, Leucine, Isoleucine, P=0.0003), and Lipid pathways (Triglycerides in medium VLDL and Cholesterol esters in medium VLDL P=0.0003) were differentially expressed in cases with PCOS as compared to controls. Analysis restricted to women with south-Asian and white populations showed similar results.

Conclusion: The study identified differential expression of metabolites involved in inflammation, glycolysis, amino acid metabolism, and lipid pathways in women with PCOS with a similar association in the South Asian and white populations. These findings contribute to our understanding of PCOS pathophysiology and highlight potential targets for further investigation and therapeutic interventions.