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Original Studies |
Departments of Surgery (M.A.M., P.J.G., C.H.L.) and Medicine (R.A.F., K.A.D., R.T.S., J.F., M.G.) at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, New York 11794
Address all correspondence and requests for reprints to: Margaret McNurlan, Department of Surgery, Health Science Center T19, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, New York 11794-8191. E-mail: mcnurlan{at}surg.som.sunysb.edu
| Abstract |
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Anabolic activity in bone, from serum levels of carboxy-terminal propeptide of type I collagen, was stimulated by 2 weeks of hrGH in controls (56 ± 15%, P = 0.002), patients with asymptomatic HIV (24 ± 10%, not significant), patients with AIDS (47 ± 7%, P < 0.001), and patients with AIDS and >10% weight loss (21 ± 12%, P = 0.02). Albumin synthesis, determined from the incorporation of L-[2H5]phenylalanine, was increased in response to hrGH in controls (23 ± 7%, P < 0.05), HIV+ subjects (39 ± 16%, P < 0.05), and patients with AIDS (25 ± 7%, P < 0.01). Patients with AIDS and weight loss, however, did not increase albumin synthesis (-0.6 ± 12%) in response to hrGH.
The results indicate variable anabolic responses to hrGH. Bone collagen synthesis remained sensitive to hrGH, whereas, the anabolic action of hrGH on the synthesis of albumin diminished with severity of disease. However unlike muscle protein synthesis, albumin synthesis was not depressed below basal levels by hrGH.
| Introduction |
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An improvement in the loss of body protein with GH treatment at pharmacological levels has also been demonstrated in other catabolic conditions, including under-feeding (10, 11, 12), cancer cachexia (13), surgical trauma (14, 15), and glucocorticoid administration (16). In weight-losing cancer patients (13), burned patients (17), and healthy subjects consuming a hyponitrogenous diet (12), the improvement in the loss of body protein with GH treatment was associated with a stimulation in the rate of protein synthesis in skeletal muscle. In contrast, in patients with AIDS and weight loss, treatment with hrGH has been shown to decrease the rate of muscle protein synthesis (5). Moreover, the negative response of muscle protein synthesis to hrGH was inversely related to the progression of the disease (5). Although a catabolic response to circulating GH is unlikely to be the cause of the muscle loss in AIDS, the response to pharmacologocal doses of hrGH does indicate that patients with AIDS and weight loss do not mount the anabolic response observed in healthy individuals (5) and other individuals with loss of body protein from other conditions (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17).
The current study was undertaken to determine whether the responses of other tissues were similarly affected by AIDS. Bone metabolism is sensitive to GH, possibly through elevations in the levels of insulin growth factor I (IGF-I) (18, 19), and increased turnover of bone has been reported in response to exogenously administered GH in both GH-deficient (20) and normal individuals (21). Therefore, the effect of GH on bone metabolism was assessed in HIV+ individuals to determine whether the observed defect in muscle protein synthesis was specific to muscle or represented a more generalized catabolic response to hrGH and/or IGF-I. In addition, the impact of exogenous GH on protein synthesis in the liver, reflected in the synthesis of albumin, was also assessed.
| Subjects and Methods |
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GH protocol
Twenty-nine HIV+ individuals (24 males, 5 females) and 10 control subjects (8 males, 2 females) participated in this study. Data on muscle protein metabolism and function of these subjects (26 HIV+, 9 controls) has been previously reported (5). All subjects were screened and excluded for metabolic or hormonal abnormalities, and all were euthyroid and eugonadal. HIV+ individuals with acute illness, diarrhea, malignancy, or recent surgery were also excluded. All HIV+ subjects were studied on their normal drug regimen, which included, in some cases, antiretrovirals, prophylactic antibiotics, and/or antimycotics.
HIV+ patients were stratified into three groups based on severity of disease. The group denoted as HIV+ were asymptomatic. The group denoted AIDS had CD4+ counts below 200 cells/mm3 with less than 10% loss of body weight. Some of these individuals had been previously treated for characteristic opportunistic infections. The group denoted AIDS-weight loss had CD4+ counts less than 200 cells/mm3 and had lost greater than 10% of their preillness weight. Some of these individuals had also been previously treated for opportunistic infections, although none had active infection or rapid weight loss at the time of study.
Subjects were studied in the Clinical Research Center at Stony Brook after an overnight stay, which included a brief physical examination. At 0700 h two angiocaths were inserted in contralateral, forearm veins, and blood samples were taken for baseline measurements. L-[2H5, ring]phenylalanine (Mass Trace, Woburn, MA) was injected over 10 min at 45 mg/kg body weight, 10% enrichment (20% for the second measurement), as a 2% solution. Blood samples for the determination of plasma phenylalanine enrichment and for the enrichment of phenylalanine in albumin were taken at intervals after the injection, centrifuged, and plasma stored at -20 C. At 20 min into the protocol, 5 µCi 125I-labeled albumin (Mallinckrodt, Hicksville, NY) was injected for the determination of plasma volume. Measurements of albumin synthesis were made on two occasions: before hrGH treatment and after 14 days of daily sc injections of 6 mg hrGH (Serostim, generously provided by Serono Laboratories, Norwell, MA).
In addition to hrGH injections, subjects were also provided with dietary advice and sample menus to achieve an energy intake of 1.5x basal energy expenditure (from Harris-Benedict predictive equations) with 20% of calories from protein, 25% from fat, and 55% from carbohydrate. During the 2-week treatment period, subjects were monitored for blood pressure and blood glucose and were also monitored by telephone for compliance with the protocol.
Diet-only protocol
Nine subjects (7 males, 2 females) were recruited into a study to follow the above protocol, with two measurements of albumin synthesis and the same dietary instruction, but without the treatment with hrGH. Four of these subjects were controls (3 males, 1 female), and five were HIV+ (4 males, 1 female). The HIV+ subjects were divided between the HIV+ group (1) and the AIDS group (4).
Plasma volume
The measurement of plasma volume was made from the injection of 5 µCi 125I-albumin (Mallinckrodt). The radioactivity in five plasma samples, taken over 70 min following injection, was used to construct a semi-log graph for the determination of plasma volume.
Albumin concentration
The concentration of albumin in plasma was determined with bromocresol purple (Sigma, St. Louis, MO) with the addition of hexadimethrine bromide (Aldrich Chemical Corp, Milwaukee, WI) as recommended by Duggan and Duggan (22).
Albumin synthesis
Albumin synthesis was determined from the rate of transfer of L-[2H5]phenylalanine from the plasma into plasma albumin. We previously demonstrated that plasma phenylalanine enrichment closely approximates the enrichment within the liver when a flooding amount of L-[2H5]phenylalanine is given (23). Albumin was isolated from plasma by ethanol extraction of trichloracetic acid-precipitated plasma protein as described previously (24). Following hydrolysis in 6 M HCl, phenylalanine from albumin was enzymatically converted to ß-phenylethylamine (tyrosine decarboxylase (Sigma), solvent extracted, and converted to the n-heptafluorobutyryl derivative. The enrichment was determined following electron ionization by monitoring the ions at m/z 106 and 109 with a VG 800 quadrupole gas chromatography mass spectrometry (Fisons Instruments, Beverly, MA) as described previously (5, 25). The enrichment of phenylalanine in plasma was assessed after acid precipitation and cation-exchange chromatography by monitoring m/z 336 and 341 of the tertiary butyldimethylsilyl derivative.
The fractional rate of albumin synthesis (FSR) (expressed as a fraction of the intravascular albumin mass) was calculated from the increase in enrichment of albumin between 5090 min of incorporation divided by the area inscribed by the enrichment of the plasma phenylalanine vs. time curve. The area used in the calculation corresponded to the time of synthesis, with correction for the time of secretion of albumin from the liver as described by Ballmer et al. (24).
The absolute rate of albumin synthesis (ASR) (expressed as the total amount synthesized per day) was calculated from the fractional rate of synthesis, the albumin concentration in plasma, and the plasma volume in each subject (24). The measurements of ASR were normalized for body weight.
IGF-I
As previously described, the concentration of IGF-I in serum was determined by RIA following removal of IGF-binding activity with acid-ethanol extraction and cryoprecipitation (26). The IGF-I antibody was from the National Pituitary Program, and standards of IGF-1 were supplied by Upstate Biotechnology Inc (Lake Placid, NY).
PICP
The concentration of the carboxy-terminal propeptide of type 1 procollagen (PICP) in serum was measured by RIA with a kit supplied by Incstar (Stillwater, MN).
Statistical analysis
Comparisons among the groups of individuals were made by an ANOVA with the Student-Newman-Keuls test for multiple comparisons. Within groups, the differences between pre- and post-GH values were assessed by paired t tests. Among-group comparisons of the proportional increases after hrGH treatment were assessed as the log post-GH log of the pre-GH value with ANOVA and Student-Newman-Keuls. All data are presented as means ± SEM, and P < 0.05 was taken as significant.
| Results |
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Individuals with HIV+ infection vary considerably in the severity
of disease, from HIV+ asymptomatic individuals to those with severe
wasting. In this study patients with diarrhea, acute secondary illness,
or cancer were excluded. Individuals who were studied were stratified
into four groups depending on the severity of disease. The clinical and
anthropometric measurements of the subjects are shown in Table 1
. The control group had a significantly
higher body mass index than the other three groups. In the HIV group,
the difference from control may be because of the higher proportion of
females in this group. The number of CD4+ cells of individuals in the
HIV+ group were significantly higher than either of the AIDS groups,
which were not different from each other.
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Diet-only study
The subjects of the diet-only study were similar to those in the
GH study with respect to age (38 ± 3 yr), height (1.75 ±
0.03 m), weight (75 ± 3 kg), and CD4+ cell number (352
± 65 cells/mm3). These subjects, who were given the same
dietary advice as the subjects in the GH study but no GH, did not
increase weight significantly during the 2 weeks of the study. The
values for the synthesis of albumin during the two measurements with
the diet-only protocol are shown in Table 4
. Despite the observations that albumin
synthesis has been shown to be responsive to the intake of food (27, 28) and also to the presence of protein in the diet (29, 30, 31), the more
modest increase in intake of 20% in this experiment did not alter
albumin synthesis expressed as FSR or ASR (Table 4
).
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| Discussion |
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Bone metabolism
The basal, pretreatment levels of PICP, formed from the cleavage
of newly synthesized type 1 collagen, were similar in all groups (Fig. 1
). Serum levels of this cleavage product, which is not incorporated
into the collagen, are correlated with bone formation (32, 33, 34). Bone
formation was stimulated by 2 weeks of hrGH (Fig. 1
) in all patient
groups. Mauras and colleagues (21) reported an increase in serum PICP
levels of 24% in a group of healthy subjects treated with hrGH (0.025
mg/kg per day). In addition, serum PICP levels in those healthy
subjects were increased further when IGF-I (10 µg/kg per h) was added
to the hrGH protocol. In the present study, IGF-I levels were 4- to
5-fold higher than in the basal state, and there was no correlation
between the serum concentrations of PICP and IGF-I. However, this lack
of correlation may be because of the very high levels of IGF-I
producing a maximal response rather than a graded one.
Albumin synthesis
Circulating levels of albumin tend to decrease either from depressed synthesis, such as occurs with malnutrition and cancer cachexia, or through enhanced permeability of capillaries to albumin, such as with acute infection (35). Reduced levels of albumin have also been reported in patients with AIDS (36). In animal studies, experimental conditions in which the albumin levels are reduced have been associated with reduced levels of albumin messenger RNA (mRNA) in liver (37), reduced albumin synthesis (38, 39), and enhanced albumin degradation (38). However, the latter study in cachexic mice suggested that the depression in albumin synthesis results from a reduction in dietary intake associated with the increase in tumor burden, since dietary-restricted, healthy animals showed a similar depression of albumin synthesis (38).
In the present study, patients with HIV infection and even the patients
who had progressed to AIDS with weight loss had levels of plasma
albumin that were not different from those in control subjects. The
rates of albumin synthesis before hrGH treatment were also not
depressed in any of the patient groups (Table 3
), confirming that at
the time of study these patients were neither acutely ill nor
sufficiently malnourished to depress the rate of albumin synthesis.
Synthesis of albumin has been expressed as both a fraction of the
intravascular albumin mass that is synthesized (FSR), and as the amount
of albumin synthesized over 24 h (ASR), derived from the
intravascular albumin mass and the FSR. HIV+ infection, even with
progression to AIDS with weight loss, did not depress the synthesis of
albumin expressed either as FSR or ASR.
In healthy subjects, 2 weeks of hrGH treatment (6 mg/day), increased
albumin synthesis (FSR, Table 3
) substantially (35%). This increase in
the synthesis of albumin was not associated with an increase in
intravascular albumin mass, suggesting either that the degradation rate
of albumin was also increased, or that the distribution of albumin into
the extravascular space was increased in response to GH treatment.
In AIDS patients with >10% weight loss, albumin synthesis was not increased by hrGH treatment (-3%, difference from other groups, P < 0.05). An inability to stimulate protein synthesis at the tissue level after 2 weeks of hrGH is in contrast to the accumulation of lean body mass observed with longer treatment regimens in patients with weight loss (7, 8, 9). It may be that longer treatment regimens are necessary to facilitate anabolic responsiveness in patients with AIDS and weight loss.
The inability of large amounts of hrGH to stimulate albumin synthesis in patients with AIDS wasting contrasts with the demonstration that treatment of isolated hepatocytes with 500 ng GH/mL is associated with increased transcription of both IGF-I and albumin (40). This study also reported decreased mRNA stability, so that the levels of mRNA for IGF-I and albumin were not altered (40). The inability of patients with AIDS wasting to increase albumin synthesis despite the observed increase in IGF-I, suggests a modification of the response in the liver to IGF-I.
A failure to increase albumin synthesis with hrGH treatment (2.8 mg/day for 2 weeks or 0.7 mg/day for 4 weeks) has also been observed in elderly subjects, despite an improvement in nitrogen retention in these individuals (41). There was no correlation of the response of ASR with age in this study. Thus, it would seem that resistance to the stimulatory effect of hrGH on albumin synthesis occurs in both the elderly and in patients with AIDS that have progressed to weight loss. This resistance to the action of hrGH occurs despite uniformly high levels of IGF-I.
The activity of IGF-I is influenced by the concentration of binding proteins (reviewed in Ref. 42). The pattern of circulating binding proteins is altered in both AIDS patients with weight loss (6) and the elderly (42, 43). In both groups there was an elevation in IGF-I binding protein 1 (IGFBP-1). It is possible that the elevation of IGFBP-1 reduced the availa-bility of IGF-I to the tissues. However, the 4-fold elevation in concentration of IGF-I following GH administration makes this somewhat unlikely. Previously reported data on elevations of IGFBP-1 following fasting indicated that the changes in IGFBP-1 were not associated with decreased availability of metabolically active free IGF-I (44). In response to hrGH treatment, the circulating level of IGFBP-1 was decreased, but IGFBP-3 concentrations were increased in control subjects and all the patient groups (6). Therefore, it seems unlikely that the diminished response of albumin in the AIDS with weight loss group was mediated by an alteration in IGF-I bioavailability brought about by changes in IGF binding proteins.
Both the elderly and the AIDS patients with weight loss have a
resistance to IGF-I-mediated stimulation of albumin synthesis though
elevated levels of IGF binding proteins is unlikely to explain this
resistance. However, both elderly subjects (45, 46) and patients with
AIDS wasting (47) have elevated levels of cytokines, including tumor
necrosis factor-
and interferon-
, and it may be that the elevated
cytokines mediate the observed resistance to IGF-I.
In conclusion, GH stimulated the formation of bone and the synthesis of albumin in healthy controls and in individuals with HIV infection at early stages of disease. When the disease had progressed to AIDS with >10% weight loss, there was a decrease in the sensitivity of albumin synthesis to hrGH. However even in patients with AIDS and wasting, the sensitivity to hrGH was retained by collagen and IGF-I formation.
| Acknowledgments |
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| Footnotes |
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Received February 2, 1998.
Revised May 7, 1998.
Accepted May 28, 1998.
| References |
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inhibits albumin gene expression in a murine
model of cachexia. J Clin Invest. 85:248255.
. Arthritis Rheum. 39:11151124.[Medline]
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