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Peripheral blood samples from a 13-year-old Thoroughbred mare were submitted for chromosome analysis. The mare had a poor reproduction record only producing four live foals during her 10 years as a broodmare. She had remained barren or experienced early embryonic loss in the other 6 years. Chromosomal analysis revealed the mare carried a rare nonreciprocal translocation involving chromosomes 2 and 13 [64,XX,t(2;13)]. Fluorescence in situ hybridization with probes specific for horse chromosomes 2 and 13 were used to confirm the nonreciprocal translocation. Both conventional and molecular cytogenetic techniques are important for identifying and characterizing chromosomal abnormalities in horses with poor reproductive performance, particularly in mares experiencing repeated early embryonic loss.

s / Journal of Equine Veterinary Science 34 (2014) 196 196 degenerate conceptuses recovered (Fig 1d,f-h) were very similar, each with a shrunken avascular yolk sac and a complete capsule. Fig. 1. Maternal plasma progesterone concentrations (closed symbols, lefthand scale of each panel, ng/ml) and mean conceptus diameters (open symbols, right-hand scales, mm) at various days after ovulation (bottom scales) in 11 cases of spontaneous embryonic loss or degeneration in singletons before fixation (a-c), singletons after fixation (d-h), and twins(i-k). Proteomic analyses of four uterine flush fluids (two from mares with singletons, Fig 1d,f; two from twin pregnancies, (Fig 1i,j) revealed several major proteins known to be expressed by the endometrium [2] in amounts that were correlated with mean P4 concentrations (Fig 2). Several major endometrial proteins were increased more than 2fold over amounts detected in uterine flushes from normal day-20 pregnancies (Fig 3). Some of these increases corresponded to increases observed 2 days after a luteolytic dose of cloprostenol. Fig. 2. Plasma progesterone relationship with several major endometrial proteins detected by LC-MS/MS in flush fluids from four mares after spontaneous loss of conceptuses. Fig. 3. Mean amounts of some proteins that were increased in flush fluids from four mares with spontaneously failing pregnancies, in comparison with flush fluids from day-20 normal pregnancies (N 1⁄4 5) and day-20 pregnancies from mares given cloprostenol on day 18 (N 1⁄4 5).