The serum level of irisin, but not asprosin, is abnormal in polycystic ovary syndrome patients

Abstract

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a disorder characterized by hyperandrogenism, oligo- or anovulation, and/or polycystic ovary. It frequently presents with dyslipidemia and insulin resistance. Recent studies have shown that the white adipose tissue-derived asprosin is elevated in humans with insulin resistance. Because many PCOS patients have a propensity to develop dyslipidemia and/or insulin resistance, asprosin metabolism could be dysregulated in PCOS patients. Accordingly, we investigated serum levels of asprosin, irisin, GIP, androgens, LH, glucose, insulin, and lipids as well as HOMA-IR, QUICKI and ISI Matsuda in a cohort of 444 PCOS patients and 156 controls. Patients were stratified based on metabolic syndrome risk factors (ATPIII [+] and [−] groups), or BMI (overweight and lean groups). The irisin level was significantly correlated with body weight, SBP, DBP, Ferriman–Gallwey score, and levels of TSH, triglycerides, glucose and insulin in the overall population, and was elevated in ATPIII(+) and overweight PCOS patients compared to corresponding controls. By contrast, asprosin levels in PCOS, ATPIII(+), or overweight patients were similar to those of corresponding controls. This finding indicated that the regulation of irisin, but not asprosin, metabolism is abnormal in PCOS patients, and this metabolic characteristic is distinctly different from that of diabetes patients.

Several Circulating Biomarkers for PCOS Diagnosis

“…Previous studies have shown that circulating ZAG, Irisin and Betatrophin concentrations were significantly reduced or elevated in patients with T2DM or PCOS, respectively, and were associated with IR [10][11][12][20][21][22]. In addition, a recent meta-analysis and other populations had indicated that serum irisin concentration in PCOS women were higher than that in healthy women, this elevaluation could be partly attributed to the BMI in PCOS patients [23][24][25][26]. Therefore, most studies have revealed that circulating Irisin levels indeed has a tendency to increase in PCOS women.…”

“…In PCOS patients, circulating ZAG levels were reported to be consistently reduced [10,27,28]. However, the relationship between circulating betatrophin levels and PCOS is controversial and the studies in the literature are inconsistent [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34]. Growing evidence indicates that these cytokines have some roles in the pathogenesis of T2DM and PCOS, and are also involved in IR development.…”

Asprosin: A Novel Player in Metabolic Diseases

“…However, recent research reported that the metabolic characteristics of PCOS patients differed significantly from those of diabetes mellitus patients. The finding suggested that the levels of irisin were abnormal in PCOS patients, while the exact links between plasma asprosin levels and the metabolic manifestation in patients with PCOS could not be observed (30). Together, whether there is a correlation between asprosin and POCS and whether asprosin can be used as a biomarker for predicting and diagnosing PCOS remain to be further studied.…”

Serum Asprosin Level in Different Subtypes of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome: A Cross-sectional Study

“…Recently, two other groups confirmed that asprosin was positively correlated with diabetes mellitus [16,23]. There have been reports about the relationship between asprosin and PCOS; however, these results are inconsistent [13,15,24]. We would like to further explore the profiles of asprosin in PCOS subtypes, and HA is one of the most important phenotypes of PCOS.…”

“…Our study provides significant insights about the correlation between asprosin and PCOS. Three different studies about asprosin and PCOS were recently published [13,15,24]. Chia et al reported that asprosin levels in women with PCOS were similar to those in corresponding controls [24].…”