%0 Journal Article
%A Wirobski, G.
%A Schaebs, F. S.
%A Range, F.
%A Marshall-Pescini, S.
%A Deschner, Tobias
%+ Chimpanzees, Department of Primatology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Max Planck Society
%T Analytical and physiological validation of an enzyme immunoassay to measure oxytocin in dog, wolf, and human urine samples : 
%G eng
%U https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-0008-E745-6
%R 10.1038/s41598-021-92356-z
%7 2021-06-17
%D 2021
%8 17.06.2021
%* Review method: peer-reviewed
%X Oxytocin (OT) promotes pro-sociality, bonding, and cooperation in a variety of species. Measuring<br>oxytocin metabolite (OTM) concentrations in urine or saliva provides intriguing opportunities to study<br>human and animal behaviour with minimal disturbance. However, a thorough validation of analytical<br>methods and an assessment of the physiological signifcance of these measures are essential. We<br>conducted an analytical validation of a commercial Enzyme Immunoassay (EIA; Arbor OT assay kit)<br>to measure OTM concentrations in dog, wolf, and human urine samples. To test the assay’s ability<br>to detect changes in OTM concentrations, we administered oxytocin intranasally to 14 dogs. Assay<br>performance with regard to parallelism was acceptable. Assay accuracy and extraction efciency<br>for dog and wolf samples were comparable to a previously validated assay (Enzo OT assay kit) but<br>variation was smaller for human samples. Binding sensitivity and antibody specifcity were better in<br>the Arbor assay. Average OTM concentrations were more than twice as high as in comparable samples<br>measured with the Enzo assay, highlighting a lack of comparability of absolute values between<br>diferent assays. Changes in OTM concentrations after intranasal treatment were detected reliably.<br>The Arbor assay met requirements of a “ft-for-purpose” validation with improvement of several<br>parameters compared to the Enzo assay.
%J Scientific Reports
%V 11
%] 12793
%I Nature 
%@ 2045-2322