Increased Low Grade Inflammatory Serum Markers in Patients with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) and their Relationship to PPARγ Gene Variants

Abstract

The Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the most frequent endocrine disorder in premenopausal women and is associated with features of the insulin resistance syndrome, altered glucose homeostasis, and central obesity. Inflammation appears to be a link between obesity and insulin resistance, because adipose tissue is one major source of proinflammatory cytokines. Since peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR)γ affects adipocyte differentiation as well as insulin sensitivity, we investigated whether the levels of proinflammatory factors in PCOS patients are related to sequence variations of the PPARγ gene. Proinflammatory cytokine levels, i.e. IL-1β, IL-6, IL-7, IL-8, IL-17 and TNFα, were evaluated in PCOS patients (n=21) in comparison to obese controls (n=120). Next to this the complete coding sequence of the PPARγ gene was investigated by resequencing all probands. We show that the levels of IL-8 and IL-17 were unchanged, IL-1β, IL-6 and TNFα were elevated and the level of IL-7 was decreased in PCOS patients compared to obese controls. Sequence analyses of the PPARγ gene indicated that neither the common polymorphisms P12A or H478 H, nor novel polymorphisms (E79Q, V32G, -39 T>C, c.480 +33 t>g,) or unique sequence variations (S22S, A23A, T41A, S226C, K272 T, I484I, c.819 +24 a>c) detected in this investigation revealed evidence for a direct association of PPARγ with altered IL-7, IL-1β, IL-6 and TNFα levels in PCOS patients. So, alterations in inflammatory serum markers appear to be a feature of PCOS per se, and are independent of PPARγ variants.

Key words

PPARγ - PCOS - insulin resistance - metabolic syndrome - inflammation

References

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