METHOD COMPARISON FOR MEASUREMENT OF SYMMETRIC DIMETHYLARGININE IN TIGERS (PANTHERA TIGRIS)

Renal disease is well documented in nondomestic felids and is monitored and diagnosed by serum concentration of blood urea nitrogen, creatinine, and phosphorous. Symmetric dimethylarginine (SDMA) has proven to be an earlier and more sensitive biomarker for the assessment of glomerular filtration rate. Although SDMA is commonly measured in nondomestic felids, information concerning the validity of the assay is lacking. The purpose of the study was to perform a method comparison between high-throughput immunoassay and the reference method, liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), to quantify SDMA concentrations in tiger blood samples. Concentrations of SDMA were measured for 81 individual tiger samples. The SDMA immunoassay demonstrated excellent correlation to the LC-MS/MS reference method. A Passing and Bablok linear regression analysis had a slope of 1.03 (95% CI, 0.99-1.11), an intercept of 1.64 (95% CI, 0.46-2.34), and a Pearson R= 0.99. The mean bias was 1.53 µg/dl (95% CI, 0.63-2.42 µg/dl), and the limit of agreement was ±7.96 µg/dl. The degree of bias is within established acceptance criteria of 1-3 µg/dl for the immunoassay. Although this study provides good evidence of the utility of the immunoassay to measure SDMA in tiger serum and plasma, further assay validation is recommended.