The physiological functions and therapeutic potential of exosomes during the development and treatment of polycystic ovary syndrome

Zhenghong Zhang; Congjian Shi; Zhengchao Wang

doi:10.3389/fphys.2023.1279469

The physiological functions and therapeutic potential of exosomes during the development and treatment of polycystic ovary syndrome

Front Physiol. 2023 Nov 6:14:1279469. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2023.1279469. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Zhenghong Zhang¹, Congjian Shi¹, Zhengchao Wang¹

Affiliation

¹ Provincial Key Laboratory for Developmental Biology and Neurosciences, College of Life Sciences, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, China.

Abstract

Polycystic ovary syndrome is a very common disease of gynecological endocrine, accompanied by irregular menstruation, hyperandrogenism, metabolic abnormalities, reproductive disorders and other clinical symptoms, which seriously endangers women's physical and mental health, but its etiology and pathogenesis are not completely clear. Recently, the contribution of exosomes to the diagnosis and treatment of various diseases in the biomedical field has attracted much attention, including PCOS. Exosomes are extracellular vesicles secreted by cells, containing various biologically active molecules such as cell-specific proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids. They are important signaling regulators in vivo and widely participate in various physiopathological processes. They are new targets for disease diagnosis and treatment. Considering the important role of non-coding RNAs during the development and treatment of PCOS, this article takes exosomal miRNAs as the breakthrough point for elucidating the physiological functions and therapeutic potential of exosomes during the development and treatment of PCOS through analyzing the effects of exosomal miRNAs on ovarian follicle development, hormone secretion, oxidative stress, inflammatory response and insulin resistance, thus providing new research directions and theoretical basis for PCOS pathogenesis, clinical diagnosis and prognosis improvement.

Keywords: exosomes; follicular development; inflammatory response; insulin resistance; microRNA; oxidative stress; polycystic ovary syndrome.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

The authors declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by the Key Projects of Scientific and Technological Innovation in Fujian Province (Grant Nos. 2021G02023 and 2022G028), Fujian Provincial Natural Science Foundation (Grant Nos. 2020J01176 and 2022J01172), and the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Project of Fujian Normal University (Grant Nos. I202003009 and I202102008), and Special Funds of the Central Government Guiding Local Science and Technology Development (Grant No. 2020L3008).