Lipidomics analysis of human follicular fluid form normal-weight patients with polycystic ovary syndrome: a pilot study

BACKGROUND: The polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the most common endocrine associated with insulin resistance, even in the absence of overweight. The global lipid profile of the follicular fluid in PCOS with normal weight as yet has not been investigated. The objection of this pilot study was to explore the changes of lipids in the follicular fluid of PCOS with normal weight. METHODS: Follicular fluid samples were collected from patients who underwent IVF, including normal-weight women without PCOS (control group, n = 10) and normal-weight women with PCOS (PCOS group, n = 8). A lipidomic analysis was performed by high performance liquid chromatography/ mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS). Multidimensional statistical analysis was performed to disclose the global differences between the two groups. Further, differential lipid analysis between the two groups was performed by Fold Change Analysis (FC Analysis) and T-test to screen potential markers. RESULTS: All 812 species of 32 subclasses of lipids were identified by lipidomics analysis. 108 kinds of lipids were considered as the potential candidate differential metabolites with the score of variable importance in the project (VIP) more than 1 by the orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis. 32 lipids were significantly different between the PCOS group and the control group simultaneously with FC > 1.5 or FC < 0.67, p-value < 0.05 and VIP value > 1. These differential species of lipid belong to lipid subclasses including triglycerides (TG), phosphatidylethanolamines (PE) and phosphatidylinositols (PI). CONCLUSION: The identified differential lipids in the follicular fluid may be considered as candidate biomarkers as well as therapeutic targets of PCOS with normal-weight. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13048-021-00885-y.