Representativeness and repeatability of differents samples weights in the dosage of fecal progestagens in red brocket deer (Mazama Americana)

• Grant number: 19/14194-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: September 01, 2019
• End date: August 31, 2020
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Veterinary Medicine - Animal Reproduction
• Principal Investigator: José Maurício Barbanti Duarte
• Grantee: Caroline Pavoni Cerantola
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Agrárias e Veterinárias (FCAV). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Jaboticabal. Jaboticabal , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The reproductive activity and stress of the animals can be evaluated by measuring steroid hormones, non-invasive methods being a simple way of hormonal monitoring, since they have several advantages, besides allowing the study in species prone to stress by capture and intense management, this is the Cervids case. Fecal samples are used as the main matrix for analysis of estrogens and progestagens metabolites, mainly due to the practicality of to obtained the samples. Pilot testing has shown there is great variation in hormone levels within the same amount of faeces of Cervids. Thus, this project aims to verify if the repeatability of the dosages increases according to the sample weight (0.5 g, 1 g, 2.5 g, 5 g and 10 g). For this, we will use five pregnant adult females of Mazama americana (red brocket deer). An amount of faeces from each female will be collected and dried and triturate, then the sub-samples will be separated in quintuplicate. The validation of the immunoassay for fecal analysis will be done by the parallelism test. Progestogens assay will be performed in fecal extracts and progesterone antibodies (CL425) will be used, which will be dosed in the Laboratory of Endocrinology of NUPECCE / UNESP / Brazil.