I'm wondering if I can draw blood pre and post treatment, measure the concentration of an amino acid such as Tyrosine, and correlate any increase in plasma tyrosine to the amount of skeletal muscle protein degradation.
After protein degradation, the released tyrosine can be reincorporated into newly synthesized proteins. Even in vitro measurement of protein degradation requires you to correct for tyrosine reincorporation. See Tischler ME, Desautels M, Goldberg AL. Does leucine, leucyl-tRNA, or some metabolite of leucine regulate protein synthesis and degradation in skeletal and cardiac muscle? J Biol Chem. 1982 Feb 25;257(4):1613-21.
The traditional approach to measuring muscle myofibrillar protein degradation in vivo has been to measure 3-methyhistidine excretion. See this and other approaches discussed in the review by Chinkes DL, Methods for measuring tissue protein breakdown rate in vivo. Curr Opin Clin Nutr Metab Care. 2005 Sep;8(5):534-7.
Hi, Patrick
Dr Warren is right, the response is more accurate.
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