Whole-body protein turnover in man determined in three hours with oral or intravenous 15N-glycine and enrichment in urinary ammonia.

Studies were carried out in eight normal adults to simplify the continuous infusion-end product method for measuring whole-body protein turnover using 15N-glycine. When a priming dose of label suitable for the urea pool was followed by intermittent oral doses of label, plateau enrichment was maintained in urinary urea and ammonia from 9 to 18 h, giving values for nitrogen flux (18 h) of 0.69 +/- 0.05 g N/kg/d with urea and 0.46 +/- 0.01 g N/kg/d with ammonia. With a priming dose appropriate for the ammonia pool, plateau was reached in urinary ammonia in less than 120 min and maintained for up to 6 h. Nitrogen flux (3 h) with oral 15N-glycine was 0.96 +/- 0.12 g N/kg/d, and with intravenous label was 0.61 +/- 0.13 g N/kg/d. There was a significant linear relationship between flux measured with oral and intravenous isotope. It is suggested that different components of protein turnover are measured with the different approaches, and that the short method in particular measures rapidly turning over proteins associated with the gastrointestinal tract.