Alterations of sex steroid hormone in an unusually sex-reversed duck: a case study

Abstract

A two-year old female duck from Chattogram area of southern Bangladesh was found to develop unusual male phenotypic characters followed by a history of egg laying. This apparently sex-reversed duck was reportedly showed several visible changes including masculine body, appearance of drake feather, gradual changes in feather colour. During this study, we attempted to measure biochemical parameters to evaluate the case. These include knowing the alterations of sex steroid hormone concentration such as testosterone, estrogen, progesterone in sex-reversed duck. We isolated the duck and observed it for two weeks. The sex steroid hormones such as testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone concentrations were measured on day 0 (D0), day 7 (D7) and day 14 (D14) by using specific ELISA kit. Besides, an autopsy was performed to find out any gross changes in reproductive organs. We identified a gradual increase of male sex hormone testosterone from 1.88 ng/ml to 3.04 ng/ml from day 0 to day 14. The female sex hormones estrogen and progesterone has a decreasing trend in concentration (estrogen 110.2pg/ml to 85.3pg/ml; progesterone 2.5 ng/ml to 1.68ng/ml) from day 0 to day 14 of observation period. On postmortem examination, atrophied left ovary with no grossly visible ovarian follicle was found. The increasing concentration of male hormone and decreasing trend of female hormone might be associated with the sex-reversal phenomenon in this duck.