PO 183. THERAPEUTIC POTENTIAL OF HESPERITIN ON ADIPOSE TISSUE AND OVARIAN MORPHOLOGY IN A RAT MODEL OF POLYCYSTIC OVARY SYNDROME

Background and objective. Polycystc ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a leading endocrinopathy of young women. It is frequently associated with hyperandrogenism, ovarian dysfunction, insulin resistance, obesity, cardiometabolic complications and infertility. We aim to investigate the potential therapeutic effects of hesperitin (HST) on PCOS.

Methods. Wistar albino rats were randomly divided into four groups. normal control, PCOS control, metformin (20 mg/kg/day) and HST (200 mg/kg/day) treated. PCOS was induced by letrozole (1 mg/kg) dissolved in (CMC 0.5%) for 21 days. The treatments were carried out orally for another 21 days. At the end of the experiment, the body and retroperitoneal adipose tissue (RAT), periovarian adiposus tissue (PAT), uterus and ovarian weight of rats were measured. Reproductive parameters including morphology of ovary and estrous cyclicity were assessed. Data were statistically analyzed by GraphPad Prism 7 programme.

Results. The treatment with HST did not modify estrous cycle, body weight gain, uterine and ovary weights but RAT (1.01 ± 0.38 versus 1.48 ± 0.38 g) and PAT weights (2.9 ± 0.5 versus 4.08 ± 1.2 g) were found to be decreased significantly (p ˂0.05) as compared with the PCOS control group. Histological examination of ovaries confirmed the disease occurrence and remission state in the diseased and treated groups, respectively. Treatment with HST decreased the number of cystic follicles and increased the number of secondary and terciary follicles, and corpus luteo, which indicates the effect of the treatment on the maintenance of folliculogenesis.

Conclusion. The results suggest that treatment with HST may reduce the fat mass gain and improve the ovarian follicular cell architecture, emerging as a promising alternative in the treatment of PCOS.