Raquel Rochetti, Fernanda Cordeiro, Larissa da Silveira, Lívia da Costa, Renato Fraietta, Kayla Jane Perkel, Fernando Ferreira, Edson Lo Turco
JBRA Assist. Reprod. 2026; 30 (1):31-38
Received July 28, 2025
Accepted February 19, 2026
Abstract
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 development of future new reproductive therapies.
