Endocrine Abstracts

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the commonest cause of anovulatory infertility; anovulation in PCOS is characterised by arrest of antral follicle growth that may reflect the abnormal endocrine environment. However, it has recently been shown that preantral follicle development is also abnormal in PCO (Webber et al, Lancet 2003, 362 1017). In that study, the proportion of follicles in the primordial, resting, phase, was reduced, compared to normal ovaries, in tissue from bo...

Little is known about the place of insulin-like growth factors (IGFs) in preantral follicle development, although there is considerable evidence that IGFs are important in antral folliculogenesis. In the rat, isolated large preantral follicles developed better when cultured in vitro in the presence of IGF-I than without (Zhao et al 2001). In the same study, reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction identified mRNA for IGF-I and the type I receptor in the granulosa/theca ...

Hyperinsulinaemia has an important role in the aetiology of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS). Logical candidate genes for the development of PCOS therefore include those genes that influence β-cell insulin secretion such as ABCC8 and KCNJ11 on human chromosome 11. These two genes encode the SUR1 and kir6.2 components of the β-cell kATP channel respectively. To our knowledge, these genes have not been studied in women with PCOS previously.<p class="a...

An increased number of medium-sized antral follicles is one of the characteristic features of polycystic ovaries (PCO) but little is known of the preantral stages of follicle development. The aim of this work was to explore small preantral follicle development in ovulatory and anovulatory PCO and to compare it with that in normal ovaries. Small ovarian cortical biopsies were obtained with informed consent and local ethics committee approval from 27 women with PCO, 13 anovulato...

Anti-Mullerian hormone (AMH) is expressed in the ovary, in granulosa cells (GC) of preantral and antral follicles. Mice lacking the AMH gene show an increase in the proportion of early growing follicles and a reciprocal decrease in the primordial pool, suggesting an important role in early follicle growth. Little is known about the expression of AMH in the human ovary. Recent studies have shown that the proportion of follicles entering the growing pool is increased in PCO, sim...