Clinical biochemistry of rescued Magellanic Penguins (Spheniscus magellanicus): serum or heparinized plasma?

J Morais,M Souza,J Volpato,A Costa,M Saito,C Kolesnikovas

doi:10.1590/1678-4162-9984

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the last few years, an increasing number of debilitated Magellanic penguins (Spheniscus magellanicus) has been rescued and taken to rehabilitation centers on Brazil’s southern coast to be clinically treated and evaluated for re-introduction. This work aims to compare the viability of heparinized plasma with the viability of serum for biochemistry analyses under rehabilitation conditions. Blood sampled from 31 physically healthy rescued penguins was processed into serum/plasma-paired samples and analyzed for 12 biochemical parameters: alanine aminotransferase (ALT), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), cholesterol (CHOL), creatine kinase (CK), gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase (GGT), glucose, (GLU) lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), total proteins (TP), triglycerides (TG), urea (UR), and uric acid (UA).The results showed that six paired samples presented visual signs of hemolysis (visual hemolytic score≥1), four of which occurred exclusively in the serum counterpart. Significant differences (P≤ 0.5) between sample types were found for CHOL (3%), GLU (6%) and TG (52%). Only TG was considered clinically relevant (>10%). All mean/median results fell within the available reference intervals by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (Penguin, 2014). In conclusion, we verified that heparinized plasma is a viable sample for the clinical biochemistry of rescued Magellanic penguins as it yields compatible results with serum, while providing practical benefits. The adoption of this practice favors a faster bird recovery, by minimizing blood sampling volume, and optimizes material resources, allowing use of the same collector tube as for hematology.

Highlights

The Magellanic penguin (Spheniscus magellanicus) is a native South American seabird and an annual visitor to Brazil’s coastal waters in austral winter (Boersma, 2008)
Of the thirty one paired serum-plasma samples, six presented visual signs of hemolysis, and scored equal to or above 1, by the adopted method demonstrated in Figure 1, and were rejected
The scoring of the samples with no visual signs of hemolysis (n= 25) showed that the mean hemolytic score for serum was higher than it was for heparinized plasma (0.23>0.17), no statistically significant differences were found

Summary

Introduction

The Magellanic penguin (Spheniscus magellanicus) is a native South American seabird and an annual visitor to Brazil’s coastal waters in austral winter (Boersma, 2008). Once held in captivity to be rehabilitated, penguins are susceptible to infectious disease due to their debilitated state and confinement stress, mostly aspergillosis, malaria and bumblefoot (Teare et al, 2013) As this species is considered Near Threatened on the IUCN red list, adequate rehabilitation efforts to ensure the opportunity of an innocuous return to the breeding colonies on the Argentinean Patagonian coastline are regarded as important conservation steps (Borboruglu & Boersma, 2015). A field manual compiled by Brazilian environmental and marine authorities proposed standardizing diagnostic methods during penguin rehabilitation These guidelines recommend hematology be performed with the use of anticoagulants, such as heparin or EDTA, which yield plasma, and biochemistry analysis in samples without anticoagulant, yielding serum in lesser amounts due to coagulation phenomena (Vanstreels et al, 2011). The small blood volume available for sampling in recovering birds frequently excludes blood chemistry tests from rehabilitation facilities’ protocols (Rodrigues et al, 2010)

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