"Boar taint" compounds influence the sexual behavioral responses of sows and stimulate their reproduction. This paper reports a fast, easier, and a non-invasive analytical method for the analysis of three "boar taint" compounds in boar' saliva samples: androstenone, androsten-3α-ol, and androsten-3β-ol. This method was developed and validated based on solid-phase extraction (SPE) and multidimensional gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (MDGC-MS). All the compounds were detected without derivatization. This method affords good reproducibility (4%-8%), accuracy (80%-105%), precision (5.5%-9.1%), linearity (R2 = 0.98-0.99), and lower limits of quantitation (LLOQ) (0.1-0.2 μg/L). Although the presence of these compounds in saliva has been known for a long time, no simple and easy analytical method has been developed.
Keywords: Androstenone; Boar taint; MDGC-MS; Pheromones; SPE-Extraction; Sterol compounds.
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