Location of the fibrinogen and albumin fractions in plasma protein electrophoresis agarose gels of five taxonomically distinct bird species

摘要

Although plasma protein electrophoresis is an invaluable diagnostic tool in avian medicine, high inter-taxonomic variations sometimes make their interpretation difficult for practitioners. The purpose of this study was to improve global understandingof avian plasma electrophoresis patterns by locating the fibrinogen and albumin, and by comparing migration distances of the latter in different avian species. This study was conducted on 80 birds from five different species: 15 peafowls (Pavo cristatus), 18 bar-headed geese (Anser indicus), 12 rock doves (Columba livid), 21 black kites (Milvus migrans) and 14 orange-winged parrots (Amazona amazonico). Protein electrophoresis was performed on both plasma and serum. For each bird, significant differencesbetween fraction concentrations were taken into account to determine the position of the fibrinogen peak on both electrophoresis curves and agarose gels in each species. Once the fibrinogen was located, measurements were performed on the gels with a calliper square in order to determine the migration distances of both fibrinogen and albumin. Albumin was observed to migrate to different locations in different species. On the other hand, comparison of the fibrinogen migration distance between species allowed us to split the five studied species into two groups, corresponding to the avian phylogenetic classification. In the galloanserae infraclass including here the peafowls and bar headed geese, the fibrinogen migrated over a significantly greater distance than in the case of the neoaves infraclass, which includes the pigeons, black kites and orange-winged parrots. Fibrinogen may thus be a useful feature for the conventional naming of different protein fractions in avian species.