Evaluation of type I and II collagen biomarkers for the detection of joint pathology in elephants
Citation
Fyfe E, Dierenfeld E, Strauch T, Wedekind K. 2009. Evaluation of type I and II collagen biomarkers for the detection of joint pathology in elephants. In Ward A, Treiber K, Schmidt D, Coslik A, Maslanka M, Eds. Proceedings of the Eighth Conference on Zoo and Wildlife Nutrition, AZA Nutrition Advisory Group, Tulsa, OK.
Abstract
The first objective of this trial was to evaluate whether biomarkers for type I and type II collagen were detectable in elephant serum samples. Two commercially available enzyme-linked immunoabsorbent (ELISA) assays for the detection of the crosslinking telopeptides of type I collagen (CTX-I) and type II collagen (CTX-II) were validated for use with elephant sera. The second objective was to evaluate biomarker concentrations for correlation with joint pathology as assessed by a lameness survey (visual assessment). Sera from 41 elephants was collected via the protocols of the housing zoological institutions (n=19) and stored at -20?C until analyzed. Assays were validated using serial dilutions of samples and sample dilution curves were parallel to the standard curve for both assays. Intra-assay variability was assessed for each assay using eight replicates of high and low mixed-sample assay controls.
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