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.