No abstract

Growth hormones are proteins produced by the anterior pituitary gland responsible for bone and tissue growth through their effects on carbohydrates, lipids and proteins metabolisms. Despite strict regulations banning the use of recombinant equine growth hormone, this substance is suspected to be misused to improve the horse physical performances. In order to check whether the regulation is fulfilled or not, controls are organized and a new analytical screening tool potentially able to detect such abuse was investigated in this paper. An untargeted metabolomics approach, based on liquid chromatography coupled to high resolution mass spectrometry, was developed and applied to characterize and compare horse urinary and plasmatic metabolic profiles upon reGH administrations. After minimal sample preparation, biological fluids were analyzed by LC-ESI(±)-Q-TOF. Data processing was performed by XCMS software and multivariate data analysis applied to the generated data set allowed building OPLS models to discriminate control versus treated populations. Results demonstrated significant metabolic modifications consecutively to the reGH treatment. A comparative study between urinary and plasmatic signatures was performed to evaluate the resulting metabolomic models and to asses their respective interests in the scope of real application for screening reGH administration.

No abstract

Growth hormone (GH) is a polypeptide suspected of being used in horse racing to speed up physical performances. Despite scientific advances in the recent years, the control of its administration remains difficult. In order to improve it, a metabolomics study through LC-high resolution mass spectrometry measurements was recently initiated to assess the metabolic perturbations caused by recombinant equine growth hormone administration. Few tens of ions not identified structurally were highlighted as compounds responsible for the modification of metabolic profiling observed in treated animals. This previous work was based on the use of Uptisphere Strategy NEC as the chromatographic column. In parallel, more and more metabolomics studies showed the interest of the use of new chromatographic supports such as hydrophilic interaction chromatography for the analysis of polar compounds. It is in this context that an investigation was conducted on Uptisphere HDO and Luna hydrophilic interaction chromatography stationary phases to generate and process urinary metabolomics fingerprints, which could allow to establish a comparison with Uptisphere Strategy NEC. The chromatographic column the most adapted for the detection of new biomarkers of GH administration has been used to set up a relevant statistical model based on the analysis of more than hundred biological samples.

Using a national sample of hospital discharges, we found identical seasonal patterns for spontaneous abortions and conceptions but no significant seasonal variation in the rate of spontaneous abortions per 1,000 conceptions. The differences between our findings and those of previous investigators of spontaneous abortion may reflect our more comprehensive definition of spontaneous abortion, our more complete estimate of the monthly number of conceptions, and our more rigorous statistical analysis. The periodic regression analysis (PRA) reported in our study may be useful in other studies that monitor short-term trends.