Skeletal muscle amino acid and myofibrillar protein mRNA response to thermal injury and infection.

Abstract

This study investigates alterations in rat skeletal muscle after burn trauma (30% body surface area, full-thickness scald injury) with or without concomitant burn wound infection (immediate postburn inoculation with Pseudomonas aeruginosa), an injury model previously described by the authors.1 The study design allowed evaluation of sequential changes in skeletal muscle membrane integrity after burn or burn-infection injury and whether these occur coordinately with changes in muscle protein mass, specific protein transcription, intracellular amino acid and electrolyte concentrations, and indices of cellular energy status. Four groups of rats were compared: animals subjected to burn injury alone (Burn), burn injury plus wound infection (BI), freely fed, unburned control animals (FF), and unburned animals pair-fed to BI (PF: to control for anorexia in the BI group). Skeletal muscle myofibrillar protein transcription (relative abundance of messenger RNA for actin and myosin heavy chain); indices of muscle mas...