Effect of prolonged intravenous glucose and essential amino acid infusion on nitrogen balance, muscle protein degradation and ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme gene expression in calves.

Background: Intravenous infusions of glucose and amino acids increase both nitrogen balance and muscle accretion. We hypothesised that co-infusion of glucose (to stimulate insulin) and essential amino acids (EAA) would act additively to improve nitrogen balance by decreasing muscle protein degradation in association with alterations in muscle expression of components of the ubiquitin-proteasome proteolytic pathway.

Methods: We examined the effect of a 5 day intravenous infusions of saline, glucose, EAA and glucose + EAA, on urinary nitrogen excretion and muscle protein degradation.