Hormonal and biochemical studies on female dromedary camels affected with multiple ovarian cysts
Introduction
The camel is uniquely adapted to hot environments and it was the most suitable domestic animal during severe drought periods. The ovarian cysts were considered as common reproductive disorder in dromedary she-camel. They have been reported to have an incidence of 3.30–10.76 % (Hegazy et al., 2004; Ali et al., 2010a; Al-Afaleq et al., 2012) and found to represent 41.86 % of the total ovarian lesions in camels (Nasareldien and Saad Amir, 2017). Recently, Ali et al. (2017) found that the over-sized ovarian follicles were detected in 16.6 % of camels and were classified as single (55.5 %), double (35.7 %) and triple (8.9 %) cysts. In camelids, cystic follicles are spherical structures, projecting from the ovarian surface, and easily identifiable by ultrasound imaging by having thin wall and clear hyper echogenic content (Ali et al., 2017). They are single or multiple persistent large follicular structures, affecting one or both ovaries and may reach sizes of up to 120 mm in dromedary camel (El-Wishy, 1990; Tibary and Anouassi, 1996) and up to 70 mm in llama and alpaca (Rodriguez et al., 2014).
Although ovarian cysts and their types have been described in the dromedary camels (El-Wishy, 1990; Skidmore et al., 1996; Ghoneim et al., 2013; Ali et al., 2017), the cystic ovarian condition still not well documented as in cattle. In cattle, COD has a multifactorial etiology (Vanholder et al., 2006) as many factors such as stress and nutritional management can cause COD. The primary cause of this disease was endocrine imbalance in the hypothalamo-hypophyseal- gonadal axis (Stangaferro et al., 2014). Nutrition affect cow’s reproduction and fertility by modulating mediating compounds, metabolic hormones or metabolites. Cholesterol is the precursor of all steroid hormones and its high levels in camel follicular fluid was accompanied with high estrogen levels (Ali et al., 2008). Low serum P4 level was considered as one of the characteristics of follicular cysts in dairy cows (Roth et al., 2012; Talukder et al., 2014). In cattle, greater levels of estradiol and alteration in the positive feedback of estradiol on LH surge is suggested to precede ovulation failure and formation of persistent follicles and cyst (Roth et al., 2012). Thyroid hormones are metabolic hormones associated with growth, differentiation, and metabolism of all cells (Ingbar and Wieber, 1981), and the higher levels of T3 were accompanied by development of follicular cysts in buffaloes (Khan et al., 2011). Oxidative stress and imbalance between ROS (reactive oxygen species) production and antioxidant status and disturbance in nitric oxide (NO) level (Mutlag et al., 2015) could disrupted or stop ovulation, leading to cystic ovarian disease (Talukder et al., 2014; Wang et al., 2017).
Owing to the lack of a precise etiology of COD in camels, as multifactorial causes are included in the pathogenesis of COD. So, it has been difficult to understand its origins and thus develop an effective treatment. Therefore, the objective of the current study was to elucidate the hormonal and biochemical profile of dromedary she-camels with multiple ovarian cysts aiming to improve fertility in this species.
Section snippets
Animals
This study was performed on 17 dromedary she-camels suffering from infertility and 10 control animals during the breeding season (from October to March). The animals are belonged to private farms and were reared in an open system. The infertile she-camels were nulliparous aged 7–10 years, having good body condition score (BCS: 3.75–4.5, score of 5 according to Sghiri and Driancourt, 1999), all of them had a history of repeat-breeding being mated at least 3 times with male camel(s) of known
Ultrasonographic examination
Ultrasonographic examination revealed presence of multiple ovarian follicular cysts either unilateral (n = 6) or bilateral (n = 11) and their numbers ranged between 3 to 16 (Fig. 1) on both ovaries. The unilateral multiple ovarian cysts were more prevalent in left ovary than in right ovary (4 vs. 2 cases, respectively). The cysts were of larger size (20 mm or more, Figs. 1 & 2) and they may exceed 10 cm in diameter (Fig. 3). They were bulging from the ovarian surface, having thin walls and with
Discussion
The ovaries have key roles in reproduction, and any disturbance in their functions can lead to sterility or infertility (Al-Dahash and Bensassi, 2009). Ovarian follicular cysts are the most frequent ovarian disorder in camels (Ali et al., 2017). The polycystic form of follicular cysts was previously recorded in dromedary camel (El-Wishy, 1990; Tibary and Anouassi, 1996; El-Bakhmy and El-Badry, 2012; Ali et al., 2017), llama and alpaca (Rodriguez et al., 2014), cattle (Mimoune et al., 2017;
Conclusions
It could be concluded that hormonal imbalances, metabolic disorders and oxidative stress are involved in the formation and/or persistence of multiple ovarian cysts. Therefore, the use of metabolic indicators to understand MOC in camels is of great interest in diagnosis and treatment of this syndrome.
reference
SPSS (2007).
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors have declared that there is no conflict of interests.
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