Protein Synthesis Rate in the Newborn Lamb

Abstract
Fractional protein synthesis rate was measured in the liver, and skeletal and cardiac muscles of newborn lambs, 2–5 days of, age. The contant infusion method was used and 14C-labelled leucine was given intravenously for 5 h. Blood samples were taken each hour and analysed for plasma leucine and specific activity; at the end of the experiment free (Si) and protein-bound (SB) leucine specific activity was measured in each organ. The calculated results indicated that more than 100% of the liver proteins were synthetised in a day in the newborn lamb, and that the synthesis rate of cardiac and skeletal muscle proteins were 35 and 25% day-1, respectively. Total leucine flux was 900 μmol/kg/day.