The Research For Causes Of Abnormal Pregnant Rhesus Monkey In Captive-Bred Colony

As one of the valuable primate resources, the current paucity of rhesus monkey for experimental work has been considered. Medical Primate Center, Institute of Medical Biology, is one of the greatest breeding cases of rhesus monkey in China. From our investigation and recording, in recently years the rate of abortion, dystocia, died had been increased to 20～35 percent of whole birthrate in the captive-bred colony. This is a heavy loss of economy and resource. We should be pay attention to these cases.Many researches indicate, the phylogenetic proximity of human and rhesus monkey results in physiological especially menstrual cycle similarities that make rhesus monkeys uniquely suited as animal models for reproductive mechanism and breeding control. Among human being, woman can be infected primary or secondary by pathogens easily during pregnancy with the changing of endocrine and immunity. Pathogen could result in congenital malformation by restrainted embryo and fetus cell proliferation. Infected pregnant woman causes abortion, premature delivery, stillbirth, abnormal embryo and thus, so it has been considered as the most commonly infectious agent of "TORCH syndrome" (TORCH syndrome refers to infection of a developing fetus or newborn by any of a group of infectious agents. "TORCH" is an acronym meaning: toxoplasmosis, rubellavirus, cytomegalovims, herpus simplex virus and others agents). Up to now, there are more than ten pathogens were reported, part of them are susceptible in rhesus monkeys. Pathogen infection maybe Was one of important factors of abnormal pregnancy in captive-bred colony. Base on the biological characters and rearing environment of rhesus monkeys, in this study, several causes which result in rhesus monkeys spontaneous abortion were analyzed, including two infective pathogens, environment, health status; nutritional condition and so on.Firstly, two specific and sensitive PCR methods were established and applied to detect rhesus cytomegalovirus and toxoplasma gondii. Detection and analysis were performed on monkey's samples from 29 abnormal pregnant cases, and compared with normal delivery group and normal rhesus monkey group, the positive rate of toxoplasma is significant increasing in abnormal pregnant group. Toxoplasma is confirmed as one of infective factors result in abnormal pregnant rhesus monkeys, the other factors including environment and endocrine. It's very crucial to protect monkey resources by preventing infection and improving rearing condition. At the same time, it would be base for studying toxoplasma pathogenesis.