I'm trying to analyse cortisol concentrations from faecal matter and would like to know how many days the hormonal residues are present in the samples before they are collected from the wild.
Obviously, the sooner that the samples can be collected and frozen, the better. That said, the glucocorticoid metabolites that you will be quantifying appear to be remarkably stable. As a colleague of mine recently said, once the hormone metaboites have been incorporated into the feces, the worst has already happened. What I think is most important is that you standardize, as much as is possible, how samples are handled prior to analysis. Variability in duration prior to analysis will likely induce variability in measured metabolite concentration.
I fully agree with Dr. Buck that the sooner samples are collected and frozen. But, I see a paper in itself looking at time and stability. We did that for our own work on rattlesnakes (below). The paper is on my Research Gate.
Taylor EN, and GW Schuett. 2004. Effect of temperature and storage duration on the
stability of steroid hormones in blood samples from western diamond-backed rattlesnakes (Crotalus atrox). Herpetological Review 35: 14-17.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Medicine
- Physiology