Ovarian follicle population and anti-Müllerian hormone in mature queens

LAPUENTE C; LANTERMINO A; HUK M; RODRÍGUEZ RR; BLANCO PG; GOBELLO C

Congreso; 23rd EVSSAR Congress; 2021

Introduction and Aim In mammals, follicle count has regularly been carried out either by ultrasonography or stereological ovarian biopsy, depending on the species. Although, follicle count contributes to the establishment of female infertility diagnosis, response to contraceptive or assisted reproductive treatments of a given species, it requires equipment, serial examinations or laborious tissue counting. It has been shown that anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) measurement appears as an indirect endocrine marker to evaluate ovarian follicle numbers in several species. The aims of this study were: a) To report the relative proportion and the total ovarian follicle population. b) To correlate follicle types with AMH serum concentrations in domestic queens.Material and MethodsTen, 12 to 24 months old (mean±SEM 15.70±1.30), short-hair female cats, which were kept under outdoors- indoors home environments, were spayed from June 2018 to March 2019 in the city of La Plata (34º South latitude and 57º West longitude), Argentina. Before surgery a single blood sample was collected. Serum was stored frozen at -70°C until AMH analysis using an electrochemiluminescence immunoassay (Elecsys®, Cobas, Roche Diagnostics International Ltd., Switzerland).The gonads were weighed, fixed and cut every 10 µm to stain (H&E) a mean of 20 equidistant sections. Subsequently, the total number (Nt) of primordial (Pal), primary (Pry), secondary (Sry), antral (Atl) follicles were determined according to Gougeon and Chainy [1] Nt = No * St * ts / So * do, where No = number of follicles observed; St = total number of sections; ts = width of the sections (µm); So = sections observed and do = mean diameter of the nucleus of follicle type.ResultsMean±SEM AMH serum concentrations were 5.00±0.60 ng/ml with a range of 2.57 to 8.45 ng/ml. Serum AMH and ovarian weight coefficient was r=0.20 (P >0.1). The proportion among Pal, Pry, Sry and Atl follicles were 98.87%, 0.56%, 0.32% and 0.24% respectively.The total number and the correlation coefficient (r) of the same follicles with AMH were 45240±9935 r=0.26 (P > 0.1), 227±42 r=0.04 (P > 0.1), 117±16 r=0.15 (P > 0.1) and 81±14 r=0.85 (P < 0.01). Antral follicle diameter was 122.25 ±6.48µm. No difference of the total number of each follicle type were found between both ovaries (P>0.1).ConclusionSerum AMH concentrations in these female cats were in line with those reported for cats > 1 year [2]. The proportions and the total number of follicles found were slightly lower than those already reported for the species [3]. No ovary seemed to be more functional than its contralateral. Similar to other species, a high correlation between antral follicles and AMH concentrations was found in these queens.AMH could be considered a practical biochemical marker of feline ovarian follicle reserve.