Altered expression of proinflammatory cytokines in ovarian follicles of cows with cystic ovarian disease.

BARAVALLE M.E. (EQUAL CONTRIBUTION); STASSI A.F. (EQUAL CONTRIBUTION); VELAZQUEZ M.M.L.; BELOTTI, E.M.; RODRIGUEZ, F.M.; ORTEGA, H.H.; SALVETTI, N.R.

JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE PATHOLOGY

ELSEVIER SCI LTD

Lugar: BRISTOL; Año: 2015 vol. 153 p. 116 - 130

0021-9975

A growing body of evidence suggests that ovulation shares many of the features of an inflammatory reaction and that cytokines play many diverse and important roles in reproductive biology. The aim of this study was to examine the expression of the proinflammatory cytokines IL1A, IL6 and TNF-α in ovarian cells from cows with cystic ovarian disease (COD) as compared with that in ovarian structures from regularly cycling cows. mRNA expression of IL1-A, IL-6 and TNF-α was detected by real-time PCR in follicular cells from ovaries from healthy cows and cows with spontaneous COD with no significant differences. However, immunohistochemistry showed an increase in the expression of IL1A, IL6 and TNF-α in cystic follicles, indicating that an increased expression of certain proteins may be related to the persistence of follicular cysts. The effect of COD was evident for IL1A and TNF-α, and a follicular structure-disease interaction was observed in the expression of all the cytokines evaluated. Thus, altered expression of these proinflammatory cytokines may be related to ovulation failure and development of follicular cysts. The results obtained in this study provide evidence for the first time that COD in cows is concurrent with alterations in the expression of these cytokines in different structures of ovarian follicles.