Serum biomarker analysis in patients with premature ovarian insufficiency

Premature ovarian insufficiency (POI) is a primary ovarian defect characterized by premature depletion of ovarian follicles before 40 years of age. The disorder has been attributed to various causes, but the study of altered proteins in serum levels as the cause is rare. Additionally, identifying novel biomarkers can contribute to more accurate diagnosis or prognosis of POI. In the present study, a solid-phase antibody array simultaneously detecting multiple proteins was used to analyze POI serum with menopausal and healthy fertile subjects as control groups. As a result, compared to the menopause and healthy fertile groups, eleven proteins, including Neurturin, Frizzled-5, Serpin D1, MMP-7, ICAM-3, IL-17F, IFN-gamma R1, IL-29, IL-17R, IL-17C and Soggy-1, were uniquely down-regulated, and Afamin was particularly up-regulated in POI serum. More importantly, all of these factors were firstly found to be associated with POI in this study, suggesting that these proteins may participate in the pathogenesis of POI and may be novel serum biomarkers for POI.