Salivary and blood samplings were performed before performing intravenous sedation and gastroscopy, but immediately after the horses were placed in the examination stock. Saliva samples were obtained as previously reported [10 (link)]. A piece of sponge (Esponja Marina, La Griega E. Koronis, Madrid, Spain) of approximately 5.0 × 2.5 × 2.5 cm was introduced into the horse’s mouth until it was soaked with saliva. Immediately after sampling, the sponges were placed in a commercially available device (Salivette, Sarstedt, Aktiengesellschaft & Co., Nümbrecht, Germany). Tubes with saliva were centrifuged at 3000× g for 10 min at 4 °C within 30 min of sampling. Saliva was then transferred into Eppendorf tubes and stored at −80 °C until analysis. After saliva sampling, 5 mL of blood were obtained by jugular venipuncture and transferred into tubes (Becton Dickinson Vacutainer Systems Europe) containing ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (for routine hematology analysis) and clot activator for serum obtention (for routine biochemistry analysis).
Horses were only sampled if guaranteed that they did not receive any feed for at least 12 h. Only saliva with a degree of dirtiness 0 or 1 according to the color scale previously reported (0–4 score) was included [13 (link)].
Horses were only sampled if guaranteed that they did not receive any feed for at least 12 h. Only saliva with a degree of dirtiness 0 or 1 according to the color scale previously reported (0–4 score) was included [13 (link)].
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