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Collaborative project: Development of an early, reliable and sensitive rapid assay for pregnancy-associated glycoproteins (PAG) for early pregnancy detection in cattle
Project
Project code: 2813500108
Contract period: 01.06.2009
- 31.12.2012
Budget: 241,106 Euro
Purpose of research: Experimental development
A reliable and easy-to-use tool to detect pregnancy on dairy farms is not available. The used methods are expensive, unreliable or impractical. The detection of a pregnancy-associated glycoprotein (bPAG) allows determining the status of pregnancy in an appropriate laboratory. Because of the postal shipping and the laboratory work there is a delay between sampling blood and the final results of several days. Besides the loss of time handling and shipping under non standardized conditions can influence the measurable concentrations and be a source of error for the interpretation of the results. The aim of the conducted study was the development of a rapid dipstick for blood and milk based on highly specific peptide-antibodies against selected sequences of the PAG. Comparable to a human pregnancy test, a PAG dipstick allows the recognition of pregnancy within a short period of time on a dairy farm. The dipstick allows the farmer to identify non-pregnant cows earlier and take the specific action. Since the reliability of the developed assay was 75% for blood further research is still necessary to reach the stated objectives.
Section overview
Subjects
- Animal breeding
- Animal Husbandry