Changes accompanying spontaneous embryonic loss in nine mares during the first month of pregnancy

s / Journal of Equine Veterinary Science 34 (2014) 196 196 degenerate conceptuses recovered (Fig 1d,f-h) were very similar, each with a shrunken avascular yolk sac and a complete capsule. Fig. 1. Maternal plasma progesterone concentrations (closed symbols, lefthand scale of each panel, ng/ml) and mean conceptus diameters (open symbols, right-hand scales, mm) at various days after ovulation (bottom scales) in 11 cases of spontaneous embryonic loss or degeneration in singletons before fixation (a-c), singletons after fixation (d-h), and twins(i-k). Proteomic analyses of four uterine flush fluids (two from mares with singletons, Fig 1d,f; two from twin pregnancies, (Fig 1i,j) revealed several major proteins known to be expressed by the endometrium [2] in amounts that were correlated with mean P4 concentrations (Fig 2). Several major endometrial proteins were increased more than 2fold over amounts detected in uterine flushes from normal day-20 pregnancies (Fig 3). Some of these increases corresponded to increases observed 2 days after a luteolytic dose of cloprostenol. Fig. 2. Plasma progesterone relationship with several major endometrial proteins detected by LC-MS/MS in flush fluids from four mares after spontaneous loss of conceptuses. Fig. 3. Mean amounts of some proteins that were increased in flush fluids from four mares with spontaneously failing pregnancies, in comparison with flush fluids from day-20 normal pregnancies (N 1⁄4 5) and day-20 pregnancies from mares given cloprostenol on day 18 (N 1⁄4 5).