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Urinary estrogens as a non-invasive biomarker of viable pregnancy in the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca)

Wilson, Kirsten S.; Wauters, Jella; Valentine, Iain; McNeilly, Alan; Girling, Simon; Li, Rengui; Li, Desheng; Zhang, Hemin; Rae, Mick T.; Howie, Forbes; Andrew, Ruth; Duncan, William Colin

Authors

Kirsten S. Wilson

Jella Wauters

Iain Valentine

Alan McNeilly

Simon Girling

Rengui Li

Desheng Li

Hemin Zhang

Forbes Howie

Ruth Andrew

William Colin Duncan



Abstract

Female giant pandas show complex reproductive traits, being seasonally monoestrus, displaying a variable length embryonic diapause and exhibiting pseudopregnancy. Currently, there is no confirmatory non-invasive biomarker of blastocyst implantation or pregnancy. This study aimed to monitor urinary estrogens across gestation in pregnancy (n = 4), pseudopregnancy (n = 4) and non-birth cycles (n = 5) in the giant panda. A pregnancy-specific profile of estrogens corrected for urinary specific gravity was identified during the gestation period. Pregnant females showed increasing concentrations of estrogens for 29 days until birth, no increase was observed during pseudopregnancy and the two profiles were distinguishable from each other for the final 2 weeks of the cycle suggesting the estrogens are of placental origin. This allowed a nomogram, starting at a known fixed point during the cycle, to be created and tested with cycles of known outcome, and cycles which were inseminated but did not result in a birth. Non-birth profiles showed deviations from that of pregnancy. We believe these deviations indicate the point of failure of the placenta to support a developing cub. Non-invasive longitudinal monitoring of estrogen concentrations therefore has the potential to be developed as a panda pregnancy test to predict viable cub development.

Citation

Wilson, K. S., Wauters, J., Valentine, I., McNeilly, A., Girling, S., Li, R., …Duncan, W. C. (2019). Urinary estrogens as a non-invasive biomarker of viable pregnancy in the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca). Scientific Reports, 9(1), Article 12772. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-49288-6

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Aug 21, 2019
Online Publication Date Sep 4, 2019
Publication Date Sep 4, 2019
Deposit Date Sep 4, 2019
Publicly Available Date Sep 4, 2019
Journal Scientific Reports
Publisher Nature Publishing Group
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 9
Issue 1
Article Number 12772
DOI https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-49288-6
Keywords Animal physiology, Hormones, Reproductive biology
Public URL http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/2112073

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Urinary Estrogens As A Non-invasive Biomarker Of Viable Pregnancy In The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda Melanoleuca) (1.7 Mb)
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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.




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