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Simple Immunological Method for the Diagnosis of Pregnancy in Mares

Abstract

THE diagnosis of pregnancy in women has been routinely effected by utilizing the reaction in which human chorionic gonadotrophin (HCG) inhibits the agglutination of HGC-coated red blood cells1,2 or latex particles3. The same method was then used for the assay of pregnant mare serum gonadotrophin (PMSG)4 and it was shown that PMSG in the sera of pregnant mares was detectable after about day 44 of pregnancy, increased to a maximum around the seventieth day as reported earlier5 and had decreased to small concentrations by day 120. Similar experiments done by other workers seem to have been less successful6–8 chiefly because mare sera cause variable degrees of non-specific agglutination even after extraction with acetone or ethanol.

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RICHARDS, C. Simple Immunological Method for the Diagnosis of Pregnancy in Mares. Nature 215, 1280–1281 (1967). https://doi.org/10.1038/2151280a0

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