Abstract
Hematological and serum biochemical data obtained from 91 laboratory-bred cynomolgus monkeys (Macaca fascicularis) aged 11 to 362 days were analyzed by the discriminant analysis. All animals used had been bred and reared under uniform environmenal conditions at Tsukuba Primate Center for Medical Science, N. I. H., Japan. The examination items were as follows: red blood cell count (RBC), hematocrit value (Ht), hemoglobin concentratio (Hb), mean corpuscular volume (MCV), white hood cell count (WBC), glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase activity (GOT), glutamic pyruvic transaminase activity (GPT), total protein concentration (TP), albumin concentration (ALB), albumin-globulin ratio (A/C), blood urea nitrogn (BUN), glcose concentration (GLU), total cholesterol concentration (TCHO), free cholesterol concentration (FCHO), triglyceride concentratio (TG), alkaline phosphatase activity (ALP) and calcium concentration (Ca) . The animals were divided into four groups (A: Suckling infants, less than 176 days old. B, C, D: Weanlings and juveniles, 121 to 220 days old, 221 to 280 days old, and 281 to 362 days old, respectively) . Discrimination was possible among these four groups on the basis of the Mahalanobis' generalized distance. Regarding the canonical discriminant analysis (discriminant analysis with reduction of dimensionality), discrimintion was possible. The suckling infant group could be discriminated from the juvenile groups by the first canonical variate. Concerning the juvenile groups, age was highly correlated to the value of the second canonical variate. Judging from an approximate relative eigenvector value for the second canonical variate, the effective discriminant variables were WBC, TP, ALB, A/G, TCHO, FCHO, TG, and ALP. It can be concluded that these eight parameters are important and useful for monitoring the physiologicals conditions of growing juvenile monkeys.
