Is Bradykinin 1-5 a Reliable Biomarker for Pain in Dogs?
New article published in Journal of Veterinary Forensic Sciences
August 7th, 2023
David RA., Piedrola O., Cabanes D., Ramirez S., Montes MJ., Perez AA., Blazquez JA., Briones V., Lacey N. and Barcena C..
Animal pain and suffering have long been evaluated in subjective terms, due to the inherent challenge of quantifying the signs. Such resources would be integral for legal purposes, as in the pursuit of cases of suspected animal mistreatment. In that spirit, and with focus on dogs, the present study sought to evaluate the viability of bradykinin (BK 1-5) as a biomarker for pain, in canine plasma. This work was based in central Spain. The main goal of this initiative was to determine whether BK 1-5 level by itself could be used as a biomarker for dogs with pain.
In total, 26 dogs that were either patients of a veterinary clinic, or that were admitted to a local shelter with known history, were sampled for this study. The dogs were categorized into one of three distinct groups, namely those: without apparent mistreatment; diagnosed with a ‘painful’ illness and medicated against it; allegedly having been mistreated or neglected (e.g., hoarding, physical abuse). Although plasma volume issues precluded detection in individual samples, BK 1-5 was detected in pooled/group samples (n = 3), at concentrations of: 2.26 fmol/ml (Gp1), 2.66 fmol/ml (Gp 2), and 1.72 fmol/ml (Gp 3). The role of sex and age of each dog, and the types of individual medication (where applicable) was also considered relative to observed sources of variation in the measurements. Lessons learned during this exploratory study are drawn from, including the opportunistic identification of other potentially promising biomarkers. Recommendations for further work and exploration are also offered.
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