Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome: modelling development, phenotype and progression using a developmental paradigm

多囊卵巢综合征（PCOS）很常见：超过二十分之一的年轻女性患有这种疾病。有许多相关的健康问题，包括月经不正常、流产、不孕、毛发过多、痤疮、体重增加和糖尿病。由于我们不了解多囊卵巢综合征的原因，我们只能治疗各种症状，而不是病情本身。我们认为多囊症的种子在出生前就已经播下了。虽然羊不会？他们通常不会患多囊症，如果我们在出生前稍微改变一下荷尔蒙环境，他们成年后就会出现多囊症的许多特征。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展有关。我们计划研究这些羊的生长发育，以了解多囊卵巢综合征的不同问题是如何发展的。这将帮助我们了解多囊卵巢综合征是如何发展的，我们可以利用这些知识来预防或改变它的发展。然后我们可以调查青春期前是否有任何变化可以预测多囊卵巢综合征的发展，研究当前治疗的效果并开发和测试新的治疗方法。

Polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) is common: more than one in twenty young women has this condition. There are many associated health problems including abnormal periods, miscarriages, infertility, excess hair, acne, weight gain and diabetes. 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 beginning of life before birth. Although sheep don?t normally suffer from PCOS, if we change the hormonal environment slightly before birth they develop a lot of features of PCOS as adults. We think similar changes in the environment before birth in women is associated with the development of PCOS. We plan to study the growth and development of these sheep to understand how the different problems of PCOS develop. This will help us understand how PCOS develops and we can use that knowledge to prevent or modify its development. We can then investigate whether there are any changes before puberty that will predict the development of PCOS, study the effects of current treatments and develop and test new treatments.