Pathways of muscle protein breakdown in injury and sepsis.

The purpose of this article is to review evidence that the ubiquitin-proteasome proteolytic pathway plays an important role in injury- and sepsis-induced muscle catabolism. Such evidence includes upregulated gene expression of several of the components of the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway as well as energy-dependency of the injury- and sepsis-induced muscle protein breakdown. Although the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway is the predominant mechanism of muscle breakdown in various catabolic conditions, other proteolytic mechanisms, in particular calcium-dependent, calpain-mediated protein degradation, probably participate as well.