ELISA FOR THE MEASUREMENT OF SERUM AND URINARY CHORIONIC-GONADOTROPINCONCENTRATIONS IN THE LABORATORY MACAQUE

A rapid, sensitive, enzyme-linked immunosorbant assay (ELISA) for the measurement of chorionic gonadotropin (CG) in serum and urine samples of laboratory macaques is reported. The ligand (CG) is captured by a r eadily available, widely used, and well-characterized monoclonal antib ody (Mab, 518B7) generated against the beta subunit of bovine luteiniz ing hormone (LH). This Mab, while specific for LH, shows very little s pecies specificity, and has been shown to detect LH and CG by radioimm unoassay (RIA) in both human and non-human primates. A polyclonal anti serum raised in rabbits against human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) is conjugated to horseradish peroxidase, and is used as the second antibo dy signal. This anti-hCG antiserum cross reacts with CG secreted by bo th the human (hCG) and macaque (mCG). The ELISA utilizes hCG as the st andard, and results are based on the relative concentrations of mCG in serum and urine. Total assay time is less than 5 hours. Range of the standard curve is 0.002 to 0.5 ng hCG/well, and the least detectable c oncentration of hCG is 0.0023 +/- 0.0007 ng/well. Pregnancy was detect ed in early pregnant macaques (M. fascicularis) on 9 (N = 1/16), 10 (N = 1/16), 11 (N = 1/16), 12 (N = 6/16), 13 (N = 1/16), 14 (N = 4/16), and 15 (N = 2/16) days following the pre-ovulatory urinary estrone con jugate peak. The detection of pregnancy by urinary mCG occurred approx imately 24 to 72 hours after its detection in serum. (C) 1997 Wiley-Li ss, Inc.