METABOLOMICS STUDY OF FOLLICULAR FLUID IN WOMEN UNDERGOING IN VITRO FERTILIZATION (IVF)

Follicular fluid (FF) is the in-vivo oocyte environment that fills the antrum of a mature follicle, and contains important metabolites for oocyte growth and development. In the last years, FF has gained increased interest as it is a superfluous and easily available product aspirated together with oocyte during standard IVF procedures (1). Several investigations were conducted on FF to find biomarkers of oocyte quality by using targeted analyses where a selective class of molecules is profiled. The use of single biochemical markers should better be replaced with a metabolomic approach to assess both oocyte (1,2) and embryo quality (3), and to identify biomarkers for predicting IVF outcome (4). The most used techniques for metabolic profiling are mass spectrometry and NMR. NMR has many advantages because is capable of simultaneously detecting a wide variety of metabolites with accuracy and reproducibility without elaborate sample preparation (5). Only few studies correlated the FF biomarkers with infertility causes (6-8). We present some applications of NMR metabolomics in the study of FF in women who underwent IVF treatments. Significant correlations between patients' features and metabolites identified were observed both for cancer patients (9) and in women with different infertility pathologies (10). NMR-based metabolomics could be a valid prognostic tool for identifying and selecting the best cryopreserved oocytes and to identify metabolites correlated to the causes of infertility. References 1) Revelli et al Reprod Biol Endocrinol 2009 7:40 2) Piñero-Sagredo et al NMR Biomed 2010 23 485-95 3) McRae et al Int J Reprod Med 2013 2013:603167 4) Bracewell-Milnes et al Hum Reprod Update 2017 23 723-36 5) Markley et al Curr Opin Biotechnol 2017 43 34-40 6) Arya et al Med Hypotheses 2012 78 475-8 7) Zhang et al Oncotarget 2017 8 80472-80 8) Karaer et al Syst Biol Reprod Med 1-9 9) Castiglione Morelli et al JARG 2018 1-8 10) Castiglione Morelli et al Metabolomics 2019 15 19