Liu J, et al. - Since altered proteins in serum levels in patients with premature ovarian insufficiency (POI) have been rarely explored as the cause of this disorder, and also more accurate diagnosis or prognosis of POI can be achieved by detecting new biomarkers, therefore, researchers used a solid-phase antibody array simultaneously detecting multiple proteins in this study, to examine POI serum with menopausal and healthy fertile individuals as control groups. They found unique downregulation of eleven proteins, including Neurturin, Frizzled-5, Serpin D1, MMP-7, ICAM-3, IL-17F, IFN-gamma R1, IL-29, IL-17R, IL-17C and Soggy-1, compared with the menopause and healthy fertile groups, and specific upregulation of Afamin in POI serum. The findings of this study revealed the link of all of these factors with POI, for the first time ever. This implies a possible contribution of these proteins in the pathogenesis of POI as well as their likely ability to serve as new serum biomarkers for POI.