Jesus Sónia A, Schmidt Anke, Fickel Jörns, Doherr Marcus G, Boonprasert Khajohnpat, Thitaram Chatchote, Sariya Ladawan, Ratanakron Parntep, Hildebrandt Thomas B
Department of Reproduction Management, Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, 10315 Berlin, Germany.
Department of Evolutionary Genetics, Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, 10315 Berlin, Germany.
Animals (Basel). 2022 Feb 2;12(3):361. doi: 10.3390/ani12030361.
The Asian elephant population is continuously declining due to several extrinsic reasons in their range countries, but also due to diseases in captive populations worldwide. One of these diseases, the elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV) hemorrhagic disease, is very impactful because it particularly affects Asian elephant calves. It is commonly fatal and presents as an acute and generalized hemorrhagic syndrome. Therefore, having reference values of coagulation parameters, and obtaining such values for diseased animals in a very short time, is of great importance. We analyzed prothrombin time (PT), activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT), and fibrinogen concentrations using a portable and fast point-of-care analyzer (VetScan Pro) in 127 Asian elephants from Thai camps and European captive herds. We found significantly different PT and aPTT coagulation times between elephants from the two regions, as well as clear differences in fibrinogen concentration. Nevertheless, these alterations were not expected to have biological or clinical implications. We have also sequenced the coagulation factor VII gene of 141 animals to assess the presence of a previously reported hereditary coagulation disorder in Asian elephants and to investigate the presence of other mutations. We did not find the previously reported mutation in our study population. Instead, we discovered the presence of several new single nucleotide polymorphisms, two of them being considered as deleterious by effect prediction software.
由于其分布国的多种外在原因，以及全球圈养大象种群中的疾病，亚洲象的数量在持续减少。其中一种疾病，大象嗜内皮细胞疱疹病毒（EEHV）出血性疾病，影响非常大，因为它特别影响亚洲象幼崽。这种疾病通常是致命的，表现为急性全身性出血综合征。因此，拥有凝血参数的参考值，并在极短时间内为患病动物获取这些值，非常重要。我们使用便携式快速即时检测分析仪（VetScan Pro）分析了来自泰国营地和欧洲圈养象群的127头亚洲象的凝血酶原时间（PT）、活化部分凝血活酶时间（aPTT）和纤维蛋白原浓度。我们发现两个地区大象的PT和aPTT凝血时间存在显著差异，纤维蛋白原浓度也有明显差异。然而，预计这些改变不会有生物学或临床意义。我们还对141头动物的凝血因子VII基因进行了测序，以评估亚洲象中先前报道的遗传性凝血障碍的存在情况，并调查其他突变的存在情况。我们在研究群体中未发现先前报道的突变。相反，我们发现了几个新的单核苷酸多态性，其中两个被效应预测软件认为是有害的。
