The role of mast cells in the mechanisms of the onset and progression of endocrine system dysfunction has been studied for quite a long time, but a clear understanding of their participation has not been obtained. The purpose of the current research is the hormone- and cytokine-producing functions of mast cells in culture in various environments simulating certain hormonal conditions, modeling the level of hormones in the follicular fluid at ovulation, to identify the participation of mast cells in the development of endocrine diseases, and discovering new functions of mast cells. Materials and methods: human mast cells line HMC-1 (ATCC) was under study, Iscove's modified Dulbecco medium (IMDM, Sigma-Aldrich) was used: medium No. 1 – control, medium No. 2 – IMDM with the addition of hormones simulating follicular fluid during ovulation in healthy women and medium No. 3 – IMDM with the addition of hormones that mimic follicular fluid during ovulation in polycystic ovary syndrome. The content of progesterone, testosterone, estradiol, IL-6 was studied after 1, 3 and 7 days of culturing. Results: hormone parameters in mast cell culture varied depending on the microenvironment and the duration of culturing. The level of estradiol in medium No. 1 increased more than 80 times compared to the level of estradiol at the start of the experiment. In medium No. 2 a 40-fold increase in estradiol was observed by the seventh day of culturing. In medium No. 3, estradiol increased more than 35 times. The testosterone level increased in medium No. 1 by 3 times; in medium No. 2 testosterone increased by 2.5 times by day 7; in medium No. 3, testosterone increased 8 times. IL-6 levels in all media with mast cell culture increased by day 7, but did not exceed the physiological norms of the cytokine. Conclusions: a significant progressive increase in the content of estradiol, testosterone and interleukin-6 in the culture of HMC-1 mast cells in various media simulating certain hormonal conditions confirms the active participation of mast cells in reproductive processes and the independent synthesis of sex steroids by mast cells de novo and IL-6, which will require confirmatory experiments.

Olga V Valikova, graduated from Vladivostok State University, faculty of medicine, in 1998 in Vladivostok, Russia. The residency in endocrinology had been completed from 1998 to 2000. Since 2000, she has been working at the Regional Clinical Hospital No. 2 as an endocrinologist. Since 2020, she has also been working as a research fellow at the Interdisciplinary Laboratory Center of the Pacific State Medical University, Vladivostok, Russia. She does research work with students, give reports at conferences. She has more than 20 publications devoted to polycystic ovarian syndrome. She is a postgraduate student of the department of normal and pathological physiology Pacific State Medical University.