Glycated haemoglobin (HbG) as a stable indicator of blood glucose status in ostrich

Abstract

Glycated haemoglobin (HbG) concentration is a retrospective measure of mean blood glucose level and is not affected by recent stresses, food ingestion or exercise. HbG has been determined in various wild and domestic animals such as kestrels, mankhor, mouflon, aoudad, deer, goat, sheep, dog, camel and horse. But there is no information regarding HbG in ostrich and its relation to blood glucose. The purposes of this study were to determine the normal values of HbG in ostriches and to investigate its relation to fasting plasma glucose. Blood samples were collected from jugular veins of 30 clinically healthy ostriches after 12 h of fasting. After separation and washing of red blood cells, haemolysate was prepared and subjected to weak cation exchange chromatography for determination of HbG. Glucose was measured in plasma samples. Fasting plasma glucose and HbG were 11.23 ± 0.80 mmol/l and 1.20 ± 0.2% of total haemoglobin, respectively. It was shown that HbG percent and fasting plasma glucose were correlated (P < 0.05; r = 0.93). To determine if low HbG percent in ostrich is related to low permeability of erythrocytes to blood glucose, haemolysates incubated with glucose (11.21 mmol/l final glucose concentrations) were subjected to chromatography under the same conditions. It was shown that HbG was significantly increased in glycosylated haemolysates. It was concluded that low HbG percent in ostrich is related to low glucose permeability of erythrocytes.