A comparison of changes in whole body and skin amino acid metabolism of sheep in response to 24 h continuous infusions of variants of insulin-like growth factor 1

Because of the economic significance of wool to many sheep production systems, attempts to partition amino acids towards skin and wool protein synthesis have included both nutritional and hormonal methods of manipulation. A variant of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) has previously been shown to transiently increase protein synthesis in the skin of sheep and the current study extended that work by comparing the effects of a 24 h, close-arterial, skin infusion of IGF-1, in the form of either recombinant human (rhIGF-1) or an extended variant (LR3IGF-1), on both whole body and skin amino acid metabolism adult, castrated Romney sheep, with three animals allocated to each treatment. There were no differences in food intake between the two treatment groups. The plasma concentration of immunoreactive IGF-1 of sheep infused with rhIGF-1 increased (P < 0.01) with time of administration, but decreased (P < 0.05) after 24 h of LR3IGF-1 infusion. Administration of both IGF-1 variants caused a substantial and sus...