The effect of burn plasma on skeletal muscle proteolysis in rats.

We studied the effects of plasma from burned rats on skeletal muscle proteolysis. Major burn injury (40% total body surface area (TBSA)) was produced in male Sprague-Dawley rats. Fluid resuscitation was given with intraperitoneal Ringer's solution (4cm(3)/(kg%) TBSA). Plasma was harvested daily for 5 days after burn injury from the tail blood vessel. This plasma was added in vitro to incubated soleus muscles from healthy animals. The incubation medium was assayed for amino acids by HPLC. Glutamine, glutamate, leucine and alanine were tested to monitor the amino acid profile in the medium. Results showed there was no significant change during the initial 4 days after injury, except that glutamine and alanine increased significantly on the first day. However, all of them had a tendency to increase on the fifth day after injury. Present results suggest that the humoral effect on muscle proteolysis did not exist during the initial days after burning. The humoral effect on skeletal muscle proteolysis may have been present 5 days post-burn.