The PNA mouse may be the best animal model of polycystic ovary syndrome

Abstract

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) exerts negative effects on females of childbearing age. It is important to identify more suitable models for fundamental research on PCOS. We evaluated animal models from a novel perspective with the aim of helping researchers select the best model for PCOS. RNA sequencing was performed to investigate the mRNA expression profiles in the ovarian tissues of mice with dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) plus high-fat diet (HFD)-induced PCOS. Meanwhile, 14 datasets were obtained from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO), including eight studies on humans, three on rats and three on mice, and genes associated with PCOS were obtained from the PCOSKB website. We compared the consistency of each animal model and human PCOS in terms of DEGs and pathway enrichment analysis results. There were 239 DEGs shared between prenatally androgenized (PNA) mice and PCOS patients. Moreover, 1113 genes associated with PCOS from the PCOSKB website were identified among the DEGs of PNA mice. A total of 134 GO and KEGG pathways were shared between PNA mice and PCOS patients. These findings suggest that the PNA mouse model is the best animal model to simulate PCOS.

Enhancing angiogenesis and inhibiting apoptosis: evaluating the therapeutic efficacy of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cell-derived exosomes in a DHEA-induced PCOS mouse model

“…The dosage of 6 mg/ (100 g.d) DHEA was chosen based on established protocols from previous studies that have effectively induced PCOS-like symptoms in animal models. This specific dosage is well-documented to reliably produce the hormonal and morphological characteristics of PCOS, such as hyperandrogenism, disrupted estrous cycles, and ovarian cyst formation​ [ 19 , 20 ].…”

Comparison and investigation on characteristics of polycystic ovary syndrome rat models induced by letrozole, testosterone propionate, and high-fat diets

“…Further, administration during the prenatal or postnatal periods is still controversial. Several studies demonstrated that prenatal hormone induction can result in stable PCOS characteristics at lower doses and with shorter exposure time when compared to postnatal hormone induction (Noroozzadeh, et al 2017, Filippou and Homburg 2017, Tehrani, et al 2014, Ren, et al 2022). However, other rodent studies revealed that prenatal model is inferior to postnatal model in establishing ovarian morphology of PCOS (Caldwell, et al 2014), and the prenatal model revealed characteristics that were not associated with PCOS, such as vaginal opening atresia and male pseudohermaphroditism (Walters, et al 2012, Wu, et al 2010, Abramovich, et al 2012.…”