Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS): manipulation of hormonal, metabolic and ovarian phenotypes using a developmental model

多囊卵巢综合征(PCOS)很常见：每15名年轻女性中就有1人以上患有这种疾病。有许多相关的健康问题，包括月经异常、流产、不孕不育、毛发过剩、粉刺、体重增加、糖尿病和心脏病。由于我们不了解多囊卵巢综合征的病因，我们只能治疗各种症状，而不是病情本身。我们认为，多囊卵巢综合征的种子是在出生前的生命之初就播下的。虽然绵羊通常不会患有多囊卵巢综合征，但如果我们在出生前稍微改变一下荷尔蒙环境，它们在成年后就会表现出多囊卵巢综合征的许多特征。我们认为，女性出生前环境的类似变化与多囊卵巢综合征的发生有关。为了试图防止这种情况的发生，我们需要研究出生前发生了什么，以及成年后开始向多囊卵巢综合征滚动的最初变化是什么。我们已经开发了新的技术来研究最早的变化，以便我们能够找到阻止它们发生的方法。除此之外，我们还需要确保我们能够在多囊卵巢综合征发生时开发和测试最佳治疗方法。我们将用这些绵羊来测试新的治疗方法，以及专注于多囊卵巢综合征不同方面的治疗方法是如何起作用的。总之，这项研究将帮助我们努力减少这种令人痛苦的情况的发展，并优化治疗方法，如果它已经发生。

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is common: more than one in 1 in 15 young women has this condition. There are many associated health problems including abnormal periods, miscarriages, infertility, excess hair, acne, weight gain, diabetes and heart disease. As we do not understand what causes PCOS we can only treat the various symptoms rather than the condition itself. We think that the seeds for PCOS are sown at the beginnings of life before birth. Although sheep don?t normally suffer from PCOS if we slightly change the hormonal environment before birth they develop a lot of the features of PCOS as adults. We think that similar changes in the environment before birth in women is associated with the development of PCOS. In order to try to prevent it happening we need to study what happens before birth and what are the initial changes that start the ball rolling towards PCOS as adults. We have developed new techniques to study the very earliest changes so that we can work out how to stop them happening. As well as this we need to ensure that we can develop and test the best treatments for PCOS when it has occurred. We will use these sheep to test new treatments and how treatments focussing on different aspects of PCOS work. Together this research will help us try to reduce the development of this distressing condition and optimise the treatments if it has occurred.