Researchers are studying the role of B cells in PCOS

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The authors concluded that androgens are necessary for the formation of the condition, but B cells are not, and their role remains unclear.

B cells are clearly affected in PCOS, which may contribute to an increased risk of certain comorbidities, but they do not cause the syndrome, says Angelo Ascani, a visiting doctoral student from the University of Graz and one of the study’s first authors.

We are now studying how other immune cells are affected and how this, in turn, affects reproductive function and metabolism in PCOS, says Sara Torstenson, PhD student in the Karolinska Institutet’s Department of Physiology and Pharmacology and another first author.

The study was funded by the Swedish Research Council, the Novo Nordisk Foundation, the Diabetes Foundation, EMBO, the European Research Council, the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, and the Austrian Science Fund. The researchers reported that there were no conflicts of interest.

Publishing

“The role of B cells in activating immune cells in PCOSAngelo Ascani, Sarah Torstenson, Sanjiv Risal, Haojiang Lu, Gustav Erickson, Kongro Li, Sabrina Teshel, Joanna Menezes, Catalin Sandor, Claes Olsson, Camilla I Svensson, Mikael C. I. Carlsson, Martin Helmut Stradner, Barbara Obermeyer-Piet Stener -Victorin, eLife, Online 4 Jul 2023, doi: 10.7554/eLife.86454.