This study explores the proteomic composition of follicular fluid (FF) from women undergoing oocyte retrieval for in vitro fertilisation (IVF), with a focus on the effects of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). FF samples were collected from 74 patients, including 34 with PCOS and 40 oocyte donors. Proteomic profiling using machine learning identified significant differences in protein abundance between the PCOS and control groups. Of the 484 quantified proteins, 20 showed significantly altered levels in the PCOS group. Functional annotation and pathway enrichment analysis pointed to the involvement of protease inhibitors and immune-related proteins in the pathophysiology of PCOS, suggesting that inflammation and immune dysregulation may play a key role. Additionally, HDL assembly was identified as a significant pathway, with apolipoprotein-AI (APOA1) and alpha-2-macroglobulin (A2M) as the major proteins involved. Notably, myosin light polypeptide 6 was the most downregulated protein, showing the highest absolute fold change, and may serve as a novel independent biomarker for PCOS.

Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological diseases. Epileptic seizures very often result in head injuries that may lead to many adverse consequences, both acute and chronic. They contribute to the need for hospitalization, modification of treatment, and a general decline in social productivity. The objective of our review is to characterize and assess management aspects of seizure-related head injuries (SRHIs) as an important and frequent clinical problem present in emergency department settings. PubMed and other relevant databases and websites were systematically searched for articles on traumatic brain injuries connected with the occurrence of seizures published from inception to 9 April 2024; then, we reviewed the available literature. Our review showed that SRHIs can lead to various acute complications, in some cases requiring hospitalization and neurosurgical intervention. Long-term complications and cognitive decline after injury might be present, eventually implying a negative impact on a patient’s quality of life. Despite being frequent and clinically important, there are still no widely accepted, uniform recommendations for the management of patients with SRHIs. As such, a concise and standardized protocol for the management of seizure-related head injuries in emergency departments is worth consideration.

Ageing populations, mass “baby-free” policies and children born to mothers at the age at which they are biologically expected to become grandmothers are growing problems in most developed societies. Therefore, any opportunity to improve the quality of infertility treatments seems important for the survival of societies. The possibility of indirectly studying the quality of developing oocytes by examining their follicular fluids (hFFs) offers new opportunities for progress in our understanding the processes of final oocyte maturation and, consequently, for predicting the quality of the resulting embryos and personalising their culture. Using mass spectrometry, we studied follicular fluids collected individually during in vitro fertilisation and compared their composition with the quality of the resulting embryos. We analysed 110 follicular fluids from 50 oocyte donors, from which we obtained 44 high-quality, 39 medium-quality, and 27 low-quality embryos. We identified 2182 proteins by Sequential Window Acquisition of all Theoretical Mass Spectra (SWATH-MS) using a TripleTOF 5600+ hybrid mass spectrometer, of which 484 were suitable for quantification. We were able to identify several proteins whose concentrations varied between the follicular fluids of different oocytes from the same patient and between patients. Among them, the most important appear to be immunoglobulin heavy constant alpha 1 (IgA1hc) and dickkopf-related protein 3. The first one is found at higher concentrations in hFFs from which oocytes develop into poor-quality embryos, the other one exhibits the opposite pattern. None of these have, so far, had any specific links to fertility disorders. In light of these findings, these proteins should be considered a primary target for research aimed at developing a diagnostic tool for oocyte quality control and pre-fertilisation screening. This is particularly important in cases where the fertilisation of each egg is not an option for ethical or other reasons, or in countries where it is prohibited by law.