Vol. 274, Issue 5, E852-E859, May 1998
Effects of thiopental anesthesia on local rates of
cerebral protein synthesis in rats
C. Beebe
Smith,
C.
Eintrei,
J.
Kang, and
Y.
Sun
Laboratory of Cerebral Metabolism, National Institute of Mental
Health, United States Public Health Service, Department of Health
and Human Services, Bethesda, Maryland 20892
We have examined the
effects of a surgical level of thiopental anesthesia in adult male rats
on local rates of cerebral protein synthesis with the quantitative
autoradiographic
L-[1-14C]leucine
method. The relative contribution of leucine derived from protein
breakdown to the intracellular precursor amino acid pool for protein
synthesis was found to be statistically significantly decreased in the
anesthetized rats compared with controls. In the brain as a whole and
in 30 of the 35 brain regions examined, rates of protein synthesis were
decreased (1-11%) in the anesthetized rats. Decreases were
statistically significant (P 
0.05)
in the brain as a whole and in six of the regions, and they approached statistical significance in an additional 13 regions, indicating a
tendency for a generalized but small effect.
leucine; brain; amino acid recycling; barbiturate
