The multigene family of pregnancy‐associated glycoproteins (PAGs) belongs to a group of aspartic proteases that are exclusively expressed by trophoblast cells in the placenta of even‐toed ungulates. In Bovidae, 22 different PAG genes (boPAGs) with a wide range of temporal and spatial expression‐ and glycosylation patterns have been reported to date. In this study we describe the mRNA expression patterns using real‐time quantitative PCR (qPCR) for selected modern (boPAG‐1, ‐9, ‐21) and ancient bovine PAGs (boPAG‐2, ‐8, ‐10, ‐11, ‐12) in cotyledonary tissue. The highest mean expression was detected in boPAG‐8 and lowest in boPAG‐10 (P < 0.05). Furthermore, boPAG‐8 and ‐11 were significantly greater expressed in early gestation compared with later pregnancy stages. The characterization of boPAG mRNA‐expression levels gives important insights for further protein analyses which will be valuable information for the development of new pregnancy detection systems.

Bovine pregnancy-associated glycoproteins (boPAG) are expressed by trophoblast cells in the bovine placenta. The multigene family of boPAG belongs to the group of aspartic proteases. The accumulation and circulation in maternal blood and milk has made boPAG very useful and important for pregnancy diagnosis in cattle. The goal of the present study was to develop and validate a new Sandwich-ELISA which allows the detection of boPAG in maternal serum and whole milk. Therefore, 984 serum and 928 milk samples were collected monthly from 231 Holstein Friesian cows (Bos Taurus) from one week after insemination (p.i.) until six weeks postpartum. The ELISA is able to identify a cow as being pregnant at day 30 p.i. in serum and at day 40 p.i in milk with threshold values of 1.0 ng/ml in serum and 0.0165 ng/ml in milk. The postpartum half-life of boPAG was estimated to be 6.4 days in serum and 7.1 days in milk. The boPAG profile established during pregnancy in serum and milk showed a typical pattern. The amount of boPAG found in milk was 1.5 % of the amount of boPAG present in serum. In conclusion, a Sandwich-ELISA has been developed to quantify boPAG in serum and in whole milk simultaneously with the same test procedure. This is time saving for farmers and more efficient for laboratories.

Highlights Calf sex had an influence on calving ease and dystocia rates. Sexed semen within same calf sex had only minor effects on most traits. Stillbirth rate for the few male calves from semen sexed for females was 30.6%.

Bovine pregnancy-associated glycoproteins (boPAGs) are extensively glycosylated secretory proteins of trophoblast cells. Roughly 20 different boPAG members are known but their distribution patterns and degree of glycosylation during pregnancy are not well characterized. The objective of the present study was the development of a parallel reaction monitoring-based assay for the profiling of different boPAGs during pregnancy and after gestation. Furthermore, we investigated the effects of N-glycosylation on our analytical results. BoPAGs were purified from cotyledons of four different pregnancy stages. The assay detects 25 proteotypic peptides from 18 boPAGs in a single run. The highest abundances were found for boPAG 1 in both, glycosylated and deglycosylated samples. Strongest effects of glycosylation were detected during mid and late pregnancy as well as in afterbirth samples. Furthermore, we identified different boPAG-clusters based on the observed relative protein abundances between glycosylated and deglycosylated samples. A linkage between the impact of glycosylation and potential N-glycosylation sites or phylogenetic relation was not detected. In conclusion, the newly developed parallel reaction monitoring-based assay enables for the first time a comprehensive semi-quantitative profiling of 18 different boPAGs during pregnancy and post-partum on protein level, thereby investigating the influence of glycosylation. The results of this study provide new and important starting points to address further research on boPAGs to better understand their physiological role during pregnancy and for the development of new pregnancy detection tests.

ANOVA analysis of variance AUC area under the curve bCG bovine chorionic gonadotrophin BLAST basic local alignment search tool BNC binucleate cell boPAG bovine pregnancy-associated glycoprotein BSA bovine serum albumin CDH1 Cadherin-1 cDNA complementary DNA CID collision-induced dissociation CV coefficient of variation dNTP desoxyribonucleoside triphosphate 3 mRNA expression profiling in cotyledons reveals significant up-regulation of the two pregnancy-associated glycoprotein genes boPAG-8 and boPAG-11 in early gestation