Rouge, M.; Legendre, F.; Elkhatib, R.; Delalande, C.; Cognié, J.; Reigner, F.; Barrière, P.; Deleuze, S.; Hanoux, V.; Galéra, P.; Bouraïma-Lelong, H. Early Castration in Horses Does Not Impact Osteoarticular Metabolism. Int. J. Mol. Sci.2023, 24, 16778.
Rouge, M.; Legendre, F.; Elkhatib, R.; Delalande, C.; Cognié, J.; Reigner, F.; Barrière, P.; Deleuze, S.; Hanoux, V.; Galéra, P.; Bouraïma-Lelong, H. Early Castration in Horses Does Not Impact Osteoarticular Metabolism. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24, 16778.
Rouge, M.; Legendre, F.; Elkhatib, R.; Delalande, C.; Cognié, J.; Reigner, F.; Barrière, P.; Deleuze, S.; Hanoux, V.; Galéra, P.; Bouraïma-Lelong, H. Early Castration in Horses Does Not Impact Osteoarticular Metabolism. Int. J. Mol. Sci.2023, 24, 16778.
Rouge, M.; Legendre, F.; Elkhatib, R.; Delalande, C.; Cognié, J.; Reigner, F.; Barrière, P.; Deleuze, S.; Hanoux, V.; Galéra, P.; Bouraïma-Lelong, H. Early Castration in Horses Does Not Impact Osteoarticular Metabolism. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24, 16778.
Abstract
Castration of stallions is traditionally performed after puberty around the age of 2 years old. No studies have focused on the effects of early castration on osteoarticular metabolism. Thus, we sought to compare early castration (3 days after birth) with traditional castration (18 months of age) in horses. Testosterone and estradiol levels were monitored from birth to 33 months in these two groups. We quantified the levels of biomarkers of cartilage and bone anabolism (CPII and N-MID) and catabolism (CTX-I and CTX-II), of osteoarthritis (HA and COMP) and inflammation (IL-6 and PGE2). We revealed a lack of parallelism between testosterone and estradiol syntheses after birth and during puberty in both groups. An extra-gonadal synthesis of steroids was observed around the 28 month-mark, regardless of the castration age. We found the expression of estrogen receptor (ESR1) in cartilage and bone, whereas androgen receptor (AR) expression appeared to be restricted to bone. Nevertheless, with regards to osteoarticular metabolism, steroid hormone deprivation resulting from early castration showed no discernable impact on the levels of biomarkers related to bone and cartilage metabolism, nor on those associated with OA and inflammation. Consequently, our research demonstrated that early castration does not disrupt bone and cartilage homeostasis.
Keywords
horse; castration; steroid hormones; cartilage; bone; in vivo metabolism
Subject
Biology and Life Sciences, Endocrinology and Metabolism
Copyright:
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