Ethyl-Iophenoxic acid as a serum marker for oral baiting of Tasmanian devils

Ruth Pye; David Nichols; Sally A. Nofs; Amy T. Gilbert; Andrew S. Flies

doi:10.1071/ZO23017

RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

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Ethyl-Iophenoxic acid as a serum marker for oral baiting of Tasmanian devils

Ruth Pye

^A ^* , David Nichols

^B , Sally A. Nofs

^A , Amy T. Gilbert

^C and Andrew S. Flies

^A

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A Menzies Institute for Medical Research, University of Tasmania, 17 Liverpool Street, Hobart, Tas. 7000, Australia.

^B Central Science Laboratory, College of Sciences and Engineering, University of Tasmania, Sandy Bay, Tas. 7005, Australia.

^C US Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Wildlife Services, National Wildlife Research Center, 4101 LaPorte Ave., Fort Collins, CO 80521, USA.

^* Correspondence to: ruth.pye@utas.edu.au

Handling Editor: Paul Cooper

Australian Journal of Zoology 71, ZO23017 https://doi.org/10.1071/ZO23017

Submitted: 3 May 2023 Accepted: 20 February 2024 Published: 15 March 2024

© 2023 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

Oral baits containing vaccines, medicants or toxicants have been delivered to a broad range of wildlife species to protect against or treat disease, or suppress populations. Ethyl-Iophenoxic acid (Et-IPA) is used as a biomarker to determine oral bait consumption by wildlife species to assess and refine baiting strategies. Et-IPA is a persistent biomarker in many eutherian mammal species but not in the two marsupial species, swamp wallaby (Wallabia bicolor) and brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula), tested to date. Et-IPA has not previously been evaluated in carnivorous marsupials. The Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii), the largest extant carnivorous marsupial, is threatened by devil facial tumour disease (DFTD). Development of an oral DFTD vaccine bait is underway. In this study, eight devils were fed between 1 mg and 50 mg Et-IPA via oral baits to assess the effectiveness of Et-IPA as a serum biomarker for this species. Using liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry, serum Et-IPA was detected in the devils up to 206 days after ingestion. This study demonstrates the utility of Et-IPA for estimating oral bait consumption by devils, the first carnivorous marsupial species to which this applies.

Keywords: biomarker, devil facial tumour disease, iophenoxic acid, oral bait vaccine, Tasmanian devil, vaccination, wildlife baits, wildlife disease.

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