title: Feasibility of a clinical chemical analysis approach to predict misuse of growth promoting hormones in cattle.
abstract: A study was performed to determine if targeted metabolic profiling of cattle sera could be used to establish a predictive tool for identifying hormone misuse in cattle. Metabolites were assayed in heifers (n = 5) treated with nortestosterone decanoate (0.85 mg/kg body weight), untreated heifers (n = 5), steers (n = 5) treated with oestradiol benzoate (0.15 mg/kg body weight) and untreated steers (n = 5). Treatments were administered on days 0, 14, and 28 throughout a 42 day study period. Two support vector machines (SVMs) were trained, respectively, from heifer and steer data to identify hormone-treated animals. Performance of both SVM classifiers were evaluated by sensitivity and specificity of treatment prediction. The SVM trained on steer data achieved 97.33% sensitivity and 93.85% specificity while the one on heifer data achieved 94.67% sensitivity and 87.69% specificity. Solutions of SVM classifiers were further exploited to determine those days when classification accuracy of the SVM was most reliable. For heifers and steers, days 17-35 were determined to be the most selective. In summary, bioinformatics applied to targeted metabolic profiles generated from standard clinical chemistry analyses, has yielded an accurate, inexpensive, high-throughput test for predicting steroid abuse in cattle.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Agri-Food and Land Use, School of Biological Sciences, Queen's University Belfast, UK. R.Cunningham@qub.ac.uk
authors.forename: Rodat T
authors.initials: RT
authors.lastname: Cunningham
authors.forename: Mark H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Mooney
authors.forename: Xiao-Lei
authors.initials: XL
authors.lastname: Xia
authors.forename: Steven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Crooks
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Matthews
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: O'Keeffe
authors.forename: Kang
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Christopher T
authors.initials: CT
authors.lastname: Elliott
mesh_terms: D045930:Anabolic Agents / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000097:blood*; D000818:Animals; D002417:Cattle / Q000097:blood*; D003404:Creatinine / Q000032:analysis; D004958:Estradiol / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000031:analogs & derivatives* / Q000097:blood; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D009277:Nandrolone / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000031:analogs & derivatives* / Q000097:blood; D000077603:Nandrolone Decanoate; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D015813:Substance Abuse Detection / Q000662:veterinary*; D013997:Time Factors; D015430:Weight Gain / Q000187:drug effects
chemical_list: D045930:Anabolic Agents; C074283:estradiol 3-benzoate; D004958:Estradiol; D009277:Nandrolone; D003404:Creatinine; D000077603:Nandrolone Decanoate