86 Present address: 1 M. V. Sc. Student (skmpath@gmail.com); 2 Professor (skmpath@gmail.com), 3 Associate Professor, Department of Veterinary Gynaecology and Obstetrics; 4 Professor and Head (skmpath@gmail.com), Department of Veterinary Pathology, Faculty of Veterinary and Animal Sciences. 5 Scientist (ganguly38@gmail.com), AICRP-PHT, ICAR, Department of Fish Processing Technology, Faculty of Fishery Sciences, Kolkata Centre. There are great differences in the developmental competence of oocytes collected from individual swine ovaries. Oocytes grow and mature in the follicular fluid (FF). Hence, FF composition has been under intensive investigation in recent times in a bid to increase knowledge of follicular development, oocyte maturation and follicular atresia (Mishra et al. 2003). Macro- and micro-minerals play very important role in different body functions and present appreciably amounts in all types of body fluids. Unfortunately, the information of mineral profiles of follicular fluid was scanty in follicular fluid of indigenous breed of porcine in India. Therefore, the present study was planned to determine the concentration of macro-minerals in FF of different size of follicles. Ovaries (200), free from gross pathological lesions were collected from slaughter house in Kolkata between March and May 2011, from clinically healthy sows. Average body weight of the animals varied between 95 and 110 kg. After collection, the ovaries were taken to the laboratory within 3 h after slaughter. The diameter of various follicles (1-12 mm) present on each ovary was measured using geometrical divider and scale. According to the follicular diameter, the follicles were divided into 3 groups i.e. small (1–2 mm), medium (3–5mm) and large (6–12 mm). FF was aspirated by sterile insulin syringes from all the 3 categories of follicles individually, by holding them in forceps and giving negative pressure on the follicles. Separate pools were made for each size of follicles, and then kept into properly coded sterilized graduated vials. A total number of 10 pooled samples of 2 ml each were aspirated from 170, 65 and 20 numbers of follicles of small, medium, and large sized, Indian Journal of Animal Sciences 82 (8): 868–870, August 2012 Quantitative estimation of some macro- and micro-minerals in follicular fluid of indigenous pigs D CHAKRABORTY 1 , S K RAY 2 , U DATTA 3 , S K MUKHOPADHAYAY 4 and S GANGULY 5 West Bengal University of Animal and Fishery Sciences, Kolkata, West Bengal 700 037 India Received: 18 December 2011; Accepted: 10 April 2012 Key words: Follicle, Follicular fluid, Mineral, Porcine respectively. Biochemical estimations: Sodium (Na) and Potassium (K) concentrations were estimated as per Tietz (1976) with certain modifications. Determination of the quantity of Ca (Schwartzenbach et al. 1956), magnesium (Whitmore and Evans 1964), and phosphorus (Amador and Urban 1977) was made with certain modifications. Estimation of iron was as per Siedel et al. (1984), copper and zinc concentration in FF as per Agarwal and Henkin (1985) and of lithium concentration as per Vonknoring et al. (1976) with certain modifications. Statistical analysis: The mean values (n±SE) for concentrations of various macro- and micro- minerals of FF from different sized follicles were computed. Differences between the biochemical constituents among the different sized follicles were analyzed, using SPSS package following standard procedures as described by Snedecor and Cochran (1994) for ANNOVA and Duncan’s multiple range tests. Mean concentrations of various macro- and micro-mineral constituents in fluid from small, medium and large follicles are represented in Table 1. Although concentration of all the Table 1. Concentration of macro-minerals (sodium, potassium, calcium, phosphorus and magnesium) and micro-minerals (zinc, copper, iron, lithium) in porcine FF with relation to follicular size Parameter Small Medium Large Na (mmol/ litre) 131±1.48 133.35±0.92 135.03±0.76 K (mmol/ litre) 11.16 ±0.34 10.3 ±0.225 9.26±0.28 Ca (mg/dl) 8.4±0.054 b 8.565±.0.046 b 8.85±0.058 a P (mg/dl) 8.28 ±0.211 b 8.478±0.09 b 9.225±0.18 a Mg (mg/dl) 3.365±0.14 3.198±0.207 2.971 ±0.188 Zn (μg/dl) 1.708±0.01 1.6±0.024 1.521±0.09 Cu (μg/dl) 1.842±.01 c 2.462±.0136 b 2.624±.078 a Fe (μg/dl) 244.9±1.048 b 259.5±1.046 b 282.5±2.86 a Li (mEq/ litre) 2.03±.041 a 1.138±.071 b 0.5310±.022 c Values were expressed as mean ± SE, values with different superscripts in a row differ significantly (P<0.05).