Beehner Jacinta C, Nguyen Nga, Wango Emmanuel O, Alberts Susan C, Altmann Jeanne
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
Horm Behav. 2006 May;49(5):688-99. doi: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2005.12.016. Epub 2006 Feb 17.
An impressive body of research has focused on the mechanisms by which the steroid estrogens (E), progestins (P), and glucocorticoids (GC) ensure successful pregnancy. With the advance of non-invasive techniques to measure steroids in urine and feces, steroid hormones are routinely monitored to detect pregnancy in wild mammalian species, but hormone data on fetal loss have been sparse. Here, we examine fecal steroid hormones from five groups of wild yellow baboons (Papio cynocephalus) in the Amboseli basin of Kenya to compare the hormones of successful pregnancies to those ending in fetal loss or stillbirth. Using a combination of longitudinal and cross-sectional data, we analyzed three steroid hormones (E, P, GC) and related metabolites from 5 years of fecal samples across 188 pregnancies. Our results document the course of steroid hormone concentrations across successful baboon pregnancy in the wild and demonstrate that fecal estrogens predicted impending fetal loss starting 2 months before the externally observed loss. By also considering an additional 450 pregnancies for which we did not have hormonal data, we determined that the probability for fetal loss for Amboseli baboons was 13.9%, and that fetal mortality occurred throughout gestation (91 losses occurred in 656 pregnancies; rates were the same for pregnancies with and without hormonal data). These results demonstrate that our longstanding method for early detection of pregnancies based on observation of external indicators closely matches hormonal identification of pregnancy in wild baboons.
大量令人瞩目的研究聚焦于类固醇雌激素（E）、孕激素（P）和糖皮质激素（GC）确保成功妊娠的机制。随着测量尿液和粪便中类固醇的非侵入性技术的进步，类固醇激素被常规监测以检测野生哺乳动物的妊娠情况，但关于胎儿丢失的激素数据却很稀少。在这里，我们研究了肯尼亚安博塞利盆地五组野生黄狒狒（Papio cynocephalus）的粪便类固醇激素，以比较成功妊娠与以胎儿丢失或死产告终的妊娠的激素情况。我们结合纵向和横断面数据，分析了188次妊娠5年粪便样本中的三种类固醇激素（E、P、GC）及相关代谢物。我们的结果记录了野生狒狒成功妊娠过程中类固醇激素浓度的变化过程，并表明粪便雌激素在外部观察到胎儿丢失前2个月就可预测即将发生的胎儿丢失。通过考虑另外450次我们没有激素数据的妊娠，我们确定安博塞利狒狒胎儿丢失的概率为13.9%，且胎儿死亡发生在整个妊娠期（656次妊娠中有91次发生胎儿丢失；有激素数据和无激素数据的妊娠发生率相同）。这些结果表明，我们长期以来基于观察外部指标早期检测妊娠的方法与野生狒狒妊娠的激素识别结果非常匹配。
