The role of ghrelin and ghrelin receptors in polycystic ovary syndrome

Background: polycystic ovary synd rome (pcas) is related to obes ity and to major metabolicalterations including both insulin resistance and beta-cell dysfunction. ghrelin was identified as theendogenous ligand for the growth hormone secretagogue (ghs) receptor. the actio ns of ghre lin arecarried out through interaction with specific receptor, named ghs-r.objective: in a case-control study, we compared the expression of ghrelin and ghs-rs mrna byquantitative real-time pcr method in studied groups in order to determine the role of ghrelin andghs-rs in pathogenesis of pcas.materials & methods: follicular fluid samples were obtained at oocyte collection from 22 pat ientsundergoing ivf-et as control and 11 patients were diagnosed as having pcas. tota l rna wasextracted from isolated follicular fluid cells and zug rna was diluted and reverses transcribedusing random primers and superscript ii. specific primers for the ghrel in, ghs-r ia and ghs-r ibwere designed. sample were run in triplicate on an ab! geneamp 5700 sequence detection system.they were subjected to 40 cycle s of amplification under conditi on 92°c- 20s and 62°c-i min using3 ~t1 diluted edna (1 :7), 1o ~ 1 2x sybr green, 3~1 diluted edna. p-actin mrna was assayed andthen normalized to total rna measurements for each sample.resu lts: age, weight and resulting pregnancies did not vary between pcas and non-peaspatients, whereas the bmi and serum testosterone level of pcas were significantly higher thannon-pf.os patients. quantitative real-time rt-pcr showed that mrna for ghrelin and gh -r ibwere detectab le in follicular fluid cells from all patients. we failed to tind mrna for ghs-r ia inany of foll icular fluid cells. there were no significant difference in ghrelin and ghs-r ib mrnaexpression levels between pcas and non-pf'o's groups.conclusion: our findings indicate that ghrelin and ghrelin receptors may not be cons idered riskfactors for pathogenesis of pc a s .