Exposure to oral contraceptives alters human endometrial stem cells culture media secretome.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the effect of oral contraceptives on the secretome of endometrial mesenchymal stem cells (EnMSC) and their potential impact on endometrial plasticity.

METHODS

The EnMSC were collected from menstrual shedding of five volunteers and cultured for three passages. Cells were characterized by flow cytometry and culture media was collected at the end of each passage for further secretome analysis. Quantitative analysis included detection of aminoacids, biogenic amines, acylcarnitines, lysophosphatidylcholines, phosphatidylcholines, sphingomyelins, and hexose. Data was analyzed by partial least square analysis. Potential biomarkers were analyzed by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve.

RESULTS

From 186 metabolites quantified in the culture media of OC and non-OC groups, 15 metabolites were identified as of high discrimination between groups by the PLS-DA. The ROC curve showed that 4 out of 15 metabolites presented more than 80% of sensitivity. These metabolites are Alanine, Phosphatidylcholine (PC) aa C30:0, Glycine and PC aa C32:2, whose concentrations were higher in the OC group than in non-OC group. The Students' T-Test analysis confirmed that Alanine was significantly higher in the OC group (p=0.00176).

CONCLUSIONS

The use of OCs could affect endometrial plasticity and influence the reproductive success. This study provides a preliminary insight into the EnMSCs response to OCs based on specific metabolite signatures, which may contribute to the comprehension of mechanism associated with EnMSC and OCs.