Development and validation of protein biomarkers of health in grizzly bears ...

• Main Authors: Wilson, Abbey E, Michaud, Sarah A, Jackson, Angela M, Stenhouse, Gordon, Coops, Nicholas C, Janz, David M
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Zenodo 2020
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Mammalia; Chiroptera; Chordata; Animalia; bats; bat; Ursus arctos
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13536709; https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.13536709

(Uploaded by Plazi for the Bat Literature Project) Large carnivores play critical roles in the maintenance and function of natural ecosystems; however, the populations of many of these species are in decline across the globe. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop novel techniques that can be used as sensitive conservation tools to detect new threats to the health of individual animals well in advance of population-level effects. Our study aimed to determine the expression of proteins related to energetics, reproduction and stress in the skin of grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) using a liquid chromatography and multiple reaction monitoring mass spectrometry assay. We hypothesized that a suite of target proteins could be measured using this technique and that the expression of these proteins would be associated with biological (sex, age, sample location on body) and environmental (geographic area, season, sample year) variables. Small skin biopsies were collected from free-ranging grizzly bears in Alberta, ...