Diksia.com - Researchers in the United States are developing a durable contraceptive for female cats.
This means female cats no longer need to undergo surgery to be neutered, according to a new study cited by Smithsonian Magazine.
A single injection could help control the world’s cat population.
The world cat population has reached about 600 million, and about 80 percent of those are feral.
Wild cats cause great damage to wildlife.
In the United States alone, domestic cats prey on between 1.3 and 4 billion birds and between 6.3 and 22.3 billion mammals each year.
Currently, surgery is the main method of neutering cats, and it is an expensive and risky procedure.
Meanwhile, the new technique is described in an article published Tuesday (6/6/2023) in the journal Nature Communications.
According to the study, a single injection of gene therapy could provide long-term contraception for female cats.
Later this year, the researchers will meet with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to discuss how to further test their method, said David Pépin, one of the study’s authors and a molecular biologist at Harvard Medical School.
“It’s very exciting and I hope it goes well,” Julie Levy, a veterinarian at the University of Florida who was not involved in the study, told the New York Times.
“Wouldn’t it be better if we could send someone to the field to give the cats an injection and then release them?”
Currently, cats are sterilized by removing their reproductive organs.
This surgery increases the animal’s risk of infection and bleeding, and recovery takes seven to 10 days.
“Surgery, especially in wildlife, involves tremendous stress and expense in capturing the animal, taking it to a surgical facility, performing an operation, holding it overnight, and then releasing it,” said Aime Johnson, a veterinarian in Auburn University not involved in the operation. Study.
“A simple injection allows for instant capture, injection and release.”
Since the surgery must be performed by a specialist, the availability of veterinarians also limits progress.
“We need a way to reduce our reliance on surgeons and allow ordinary people to give injections that prevent cats from reproducing,” said William Swanson, study co-author and wildlife veterinarian at the Cincinnati Zoo.
Overcrowded shelters also lead to higher euthanasia rates, Levy told Atlantic’s Katherine J. Wu.
investigation method
In the study, female cats received injections into their thigh muscles.
The injection creates virus cells in which the disease-causing part has been removed.
Inside the cell is genetic material.
According to New Scientist, the DNA instructs the cat’s muscles to produce a protein called anti-Müllerian hormone at 100 to 1,000 times normal levels.
This hormone prevents the ovaries from maturing and releasing eggs.
To test whether the injection was effective, the researchers conducted two four-month mating trials that began eight and 20 months after treatment.
They placed 9 cats in a pre-mating group with a male and recorded videos to document the mating interactions.
In both tests, all three cats in the control group became pregnant and gave birth to healthy kittens.
According to the New York Times, of the six cats that were vaccinated, two mated with males, but none became pregnant.
“This could be really game-changing if we get it as good as we hope we can be,” Swanson told National Geographic.
However, Daniela Chavez, a feline reproductive biologist at Towson University who was not involved in the study, told The Atlantic that the results should be considered early on.
More research — with larger groups of cats — is needed to determine if the treatment is safe, how long it lasts, and how effective it is.
