Use of urinary biomarkers of ovarian function in domestic Chinchilla lanigera: Assessing protocols for exogenous regulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Due to the high value of its fur, indiscriminate hunting reduced Chinchilla lanigera wild populations virtually to the verge of extinction (IUCN critically endangered, CITES Appendix I). A key aspect for the implementation of ex-situ breeding programs for wild chinchilla depends on the integration of data obtained from assisted reproduction techniques applied to its domestic congener. One of the most widely used techniques is ovulation induction through the injection of exogenous synthetic drugs. In farm animals, ovarian inactivity allows for a more consistent response to inducer injection. Therefore, the objective in this study was to monitor and evaluate the endocrine patterns of ovarian dynamics and in vivo fertilization rates after exogenous ovarian activation in chinchillas using GnRH analogue and eCG. Seven ovulation induction protocols were tested in females (2-5 years of age) and urine samples were collected before, during and one week after inductor injections. Samples were analyzed for creatinine (Sigma #C3613), estrone conjugates and pregnanediol glucuronides (PdG-R13904, EC-R522-2, C.Munro) by EIA. The endocrine patterns of this species are not necessarily associated with behavioral signs of estrus. Therefore, non-invasive hormonal monitoring remains the only method that allows us to accurately explore ovarian activity. A longitudinal profile was obtained for each hormone and female. The results of our first experiment clearly showed that GnRH administration elicited a regular response only after a threshold value of 10 µg, although of little significance. The use of lower doses was not sufficient to achieve ovarian stimulation while higher doses of GnRH apparently resulted in the suppression of follicular activity, probably due to the effects of a negative feedback of GnRH over its release in the hypothalamus. Although both eCG doses produced similar responses, the 50 I.U. (0.1 I.U./g) dose caused a more powerful and steady response. A progressive increase in the concentrations of EC and PdG metabolites was also evidenced. Finally, the results regarding the pregnancy percentages obtained after the use of any of the protocols in farm animals were very limited, reaching maximum values of 17.2% whereas the control animals reached a percentage of 6.2%.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".