Frequency of prenatal loss in a macaque breeding colony

Abstract

An accurate knowledge of the historical incidence of prenatal loss is essential for management of breeding colonies and for performing developmental toxicity studies in nonhuman primates. Data from the California Regional Primate Research Center indoor (timed‐mated) and outdoor (random‐mated) colonies of rhesus, cynomolgus, and bonnet macaques (Macaca mulatta, M. fascicularis, and M. radiata) were evaluated for a 10 year breeding period from 1984 to 1993. Pregnancy outcome data for the three species of macaques summarized in this report indicate that early pregnancy as well as term are vulnerable periods of gestation in terms of prenatal loss. Prematurity as well as twinning were additionally associated with elevated rates of loss during the prenatal or neonatal period. The incidence of pregnancy failure did not appear to be related to different housing/management conditions (i.e., indoor timed‐mated vs. outdoor random‐mated), parity, animal handling, shipping, or relocation. Some of the annual fluctuations in abortions could be related to disease outbreaks (e.g., measles, pneumonia) in the colony. These data will be invaluable in planning for research needs which focus on developmental biology and perinatology, and in interpreting the significance of abortions following exposure to experimental agents in small numbers of animals. © 1996 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.

Evaluation of Reproduction and Raising Offspring in a Nursery‐Reared SPF Baboon (Papio hamadryas anubis) Colony

“…However, our findings were consistent with reports of captive rhesus macaques [Gagliardi et al 2007; Hendrie et al 1996], although Hendrie et al (1996) found no such association between abortions and maternal parity in bonnet macaques ( Macaca radiata ). It is possible that the observed association between abortions and parity in the two OUHSC baboon colonies was related to a genetic propensity for early but unsuccessful pregnancy in their common founder generation.…”

Developmental and Reproductive Toxicity Testing

“…Whereas the guidelines recommend physical mating for evaluation of fertility, this is not being done routinely in NHPs for two main reasons: (1) Typically, fertility rates in macaques are clearly <100% (typically 25-45% per cycle and approximately 60% per animal, preimplantation losses are around 25%) [27], and prenatal losses can be as high as 40% [9,28] and (2) While evaluation of implantation sites is a hallmark of rodent fertility studies, this normal fertility end point is not meaningful in macaques, in which there is normally a single implantation site that is then often lost shortly after implantation. Twin pregnancies/births are extremely rare in macaques, with an overall incidence of twin live births around 0.1% [29,30]. Consistent with low fertility rates in NHPs, it is also stated in ICH S5(R2) that mating is an insensitive means to detect effects on spermatogenesis.…”

“…Hence, for developmental toxicity studies, the number of successful pregnancies and fetuses/infants available for evaluation is consistently lower than the number of pregnant animals entering the study. In macaque breeding colonies, the annual prenatal loss rates varied between 13% and 23% in the rhesus monkey (seasonal breeder), 10% and 50% in the bonnet monkey (seasonal breeder), and 8.6% and 28% in the cynomolgus monkey (nonseasonal breeder) [29]. An earlier review of the cynomolgus monkey reported abortion rates between 11.7% and 30.2% [54], which seem comparable to more recent observations of 8.8-20.3% cumulative prenatal loss rates [9].…”

Assisted reproductive technologies in rhesus macaques

“…However, the twin rate in macaques is very low at 0.05% and is associated with poor outcomes [28]. Despite this low twinning rate in nature, when 2 ART produced embryos were transferred, the pregnancy rate was 25% (Table 1, top row) and the twinning rate was 20%.…”

“…In the TMB population, 14 cases of fetal demise were recorded for a 92.5% live birth rate. This value compared favorably with a live birth rate for an indoor TMB rhesus colony at the California Primate Center of 83% (1106/1332) [28]. …”