| The Gloden snub-nosed monkey is an endangered primate in China and is recognized as vulnerable or endangered species by International Union for Conservation of Nature. Some studies describing the reproductive physiology of Golden snub-nosed monkeys have shown that they are typical seasonal breeders and their interbirth interval was two years. From September to December, the monkeys could be pregnant when they mated and this period was called the breeding season. From March to May is the peak period of parturition which is called the non-breeding season. Further, their complicated living environment and the high infant mortality led to a decreased amount of Golden snub-nosed monkey. The effective method to protect this primate is needed to improve their quantity. But the report about reproduction physiology of Golden snub-nosed monkeys is few. This study is conducted on Shennongjia captive Golden snub-nosed monkey to study the level of estradiol(E2) and progesterone(P4) with a view to improving their reproductive efficiency.As wild animal, the Baoding and taking blood will cause stress and affect the hormone secretion which affects the conduction of study. This study took non-invasive hormone method namely studying the hormone in feces and urine to study the hormone in blood and then study their reproduction physiology. However, due to the current study on hormone detected of Golden snub-nosed monkey is few, this research studied the detection methods of hormone concentration in urine and the extraction methods of feces hormone to obtain a suitable detection method for further study.1. The monkeys included in this study live in the center of artificial breeding, Shennongjia Nature Reserve. Firstly, 15 urine samples and 15 feces samples of female were collected from October to December 2013. Each urine sample was divided into three and the E2 and P4 concentration in the urine were detected by Radioimmunoassay(RIA), Chemiluminescent Microparticle Immunoassay(CMIA) and Enzyme-Linked ImmunoSorbent Assay(ELISA) respectively. The result demonstrated that difference between the result of RIA and the result of CMIA wasn’t significant(P > 0.05), but the difference between RIA and ELISA was significant(P < 0.05). And the result profile of E2 and P4 concentration detected by RIA was same to that of CMIA. In all, we took CMIA to detect of E2 and P4 concentration in urine in the further experiment. In addition, each feces sample was divided into two and the hormone concentration of fecal samples were extracted by homogenized method and freeze-drying method respectively. Then the CMIA was used to detect the concentration of E2 and P4 in the supernatant. The result showed that the hormone concentration of homogenized method is significantly higher than the result of freeze-drying method(P < 0.05). Therefore the homogenized method was suitable method to extract the feces hormone of Shennongjia Gold-nosed monkey. This study lays the foundation for further study on the extraction of fecal hormone.2. In this study, 1499 urines samples of 5 female Shennongajia Gold-nosed monkeys(1#、2#、3#、4#、5#) were collected for 8 months and were mainly focused on the following 3 periods: October to December 2013; March to May 2014; and September to December 2014. The E2 and P4 concentration in the urines were detected by CMIA and the creatinine(Cr) concentrations in the urine samples were also detected. All of the urine samples were indexed by Cr to compensate for differences in water content. The results showed that the levels of E2 and P4 were clearly higher during the breeding season than that during the non-breeding season(P < 0.05). The menstrual cycle was shorter during the breeding season(range 21-27 days) than that during the non-breeding season(range 41-46 days)(P < 0.01). The menstrual cycle by calculating the period between two consecutive vaginal bleeding events wasn’t significantly different with the value of menstrual cycle calculating from the level of hormone(P > 0.05). The levels of E2 and P4 began to rise on days 14 and 12 after pregnancy respectively and remained at a high level until parturition. The concentrations of E2 and P4 were lower during lactation than during non-lactation and this alteration persisted for 7 months.3. In this study, 93 feces samples of Shennongajia female Gold-nosed monkeys(1#、2#、3#、4#、5#) were collected at October to December 2013. In this study, the hormone concentration of remaining 93 fecal samples in the previous study was extracted by homogenized method and the E2 and P4 content in the supernatant were detected by CMIA. The result showed that feces E2 content of 1# in the breeding season was cycle, while feces P4 content isn’t obvious periodicity. The feces E2 and P4 content of 3#, 2# and 4# had significant changes, but didn’t appear periodicity. Meanwhile, the correlation of feces and urine hormone concentration four in the female Gold-nosed monkeys were studied. The results indicate that there was correlation, but the correlation among the different individuals differs.This study took non-invasion hormone method to detect the reproduction physiology of Shennongjia female Golden snub-nosed monkey. The result showed that the trend of hormone in different breeding season, pregnancy and lactation, which lay foundation for the article breeding and increasing the knowledge about reproduction physiology of Golden snub-nosed monkey. |
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