ArticleNPJ vaccines2023
Identifying a causal link between prolactin signaling pathways and COVID-19 vaccine-induced menstrual changes.
Article in NPJ vaccines, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 15 citations in OpenAlex.
- Prevalence of menstrual alterations following COVID-19 vaccination: systematic review & meta-analysis.BMC women's health · 2024Pooled it
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- Article
- Blood Coagulation in COVID-19: Systems-Biology Evidence, Clinical Implications, and Therapeutic Opportunities in an Evolving Pandemic.ACS omega · 2026Article
- Molecular and System-Level Characterization of MMP12 Suppression in Lung Cancer: A Combined Bioinformatics and Molecular Approach.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Article
- Computational Insights into the Polypharmacological Landscape of BCR-ABL Inhibitors: Emphasis on Imatinib and Nilotinib.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Unraveling the Anticancer Potential of SSRIs in Prostate Cancer by Combining Computational Systems Biology andACS omega · 2025Article
- Artificial intelligence models predicting abnormal uterine bleeding after COVID-19 vaccination.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Impact of administration routes and dose frequency on the toxicology of SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines in mice model.Archives of toxicology · 2025Article
- Article
- The prevalence of menstrual changes in COVID-19 vaccinated women: A cross-sectional study.Preventive medicine reports · 2024Article
- The direct effect of SARS-CoV-2 virus vaccination on human ovarian granulosa cells explains menstrual irregularities.NPJ vaccines · 2024Article
- A Means to an End(othelium): Using Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cell 'Omics to Peer into the Pulmonary Vasculature.Annals of the American Thoracic Society · 2024Article
- Long COVID: Molecular Mechanisms and Detection Techniques.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
COVID-19 vaccines have been instrumental tools in the fight against SARS-CoV-2 helping to reduce disease severity and mortality. At the same time, just like any other therapeutic, COVID-19 vaccines were associated with adverse events. Women have reported menstrual cycle irregularity after receiving COVID-19 vaccines, and this led to renewed fears concerning COVID-19 vaccines and their effects on fertility. Herein we devised an informatics workflow to explore the causal drivers of menstrual cycle irregularity in response to vaccination with mRNA COVID-19 vaccine BNT162b2. Our methods relied on gene expression analysis in response to vaccination, followed by network biology analysis to derive testable hypotheses regarding the causal links between BNT162b2 and menstrual cycle irregularity. Five high-confidence transcription factors were identified as causal drivers of BNT162b2-induced menstrual irregularity, namely: IRF1, STAT1, RelA (p65 NF-kB subunit), STAT2 and IRF3. Furthermore, some biomarkers of menstrual irregularity, including TNF, IL6R, IL6ST, LIF, BIRC3, FGF2, ARHGDIB, RPS3, RHOU, MIF, were identified as topological genes and predicted as causal drivers of menstrual irregularity. Our network-based mechanism reconstruction results indicated that BNT162b2 exerted biological effects similar to those resulting from prolactin signaling. However, these effects were short-lived and didn't raise concerns about long-term infertility issues. This approach can be applied to interrogate the functional links between drugs/vaccines and other side effects.
Identifiers
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.