期刊
出版社
SPRINGER VERLAG
DOI: 10.1007/s003600050007
关键词
protein catabolism; N-tau-methylhistidine; muscle protein; flight; pigeon
In order to study protein degradation during flight in homing, a high-performance liquid chromatography technique was developed for the quantitative analysis of N-tau-methylhistidine. Secondly, it was necessary to confirm that the excretion of N-tau-methylhistidine correlates with myofilament breakdown in homing pigeons. In these experiments, ten birds were subcutaneously injected with N-tau-[C-14]methylhistidine and the excreta were quantitatively collected for 1 week. Of the 94.5% radioactivity recovered, 87.1% was associated with N-tau-[C-14]methylhistidine and 6.1% with N-acetyl-N-tau-[C-14]methylhistidine. This rapid excretion of unmetabolized N-tau-[C-14]methylhistidine validates the assumption that the amount of N-tau-methylhistidine excreted is a measure of myofilament catabolism in homing pigeons. The influence of endurance flight on protein breakdown was determined after flights from release sites 368-646 km away. Immediately after return, plasma urea and uric acid levels were increased, whereas plasma concentration of N-tau-methylhistidine remained unchanged compared to unflown control birds. Flown pigeons excreted significantly more urea and N-tau-methylhistidine within 24 h and significantly more urea and uric acid within 96 h after flight than unflown controls. Our findings support the hypothesis that in homing pigeons protein catabolism is increased during endurance flight. Elevated N-tau-methylhistidine excretion probably results from repair processes in damaged muscle fibers, including breakdown of myofilaments.
作者
我是这篇论文的作者
点击您的名字以认领此论文并将其添加到您的个人资料中。
推荐
暂无数据