Effects of age, sex and starvation on the turnover of plasma, liver and breast muscle proteins in the Japanese quail.

Half-lives of the plasma, liver and breast muscle proteins in female, old male, young male and starved young male Japanese quail were measured by following the changes in protein specific radioactivity over a period of 7 days. The female birds showed the shortest half-lives for plasma and liver proteins and very long half-lives for breast muscle proteins. Compared to the proteins from the female birds, the old and young male birds showed slightly longer half-lives for plasma and insoluble liver proteins and shorter half-lives for soluble liver and breast muscle proteins. Starved birds showed greatly increased half-lives for all proteins when compared to the corresponding proteins from the other groups of quail. In general, the trends shown for the turnover of proteins from plasma, liver and breast muscle of the four groups of quail were similar to turnovers reported for rats under similar treatment conditions.