With that in mind, our experiments have attempted to differentiate the effects of pure critical illness itself versus that of malnutrition, immobilization etc. The studies being performed will test whether qualitative and quantitative changes in these receptors play an important role in the aberrant signal transduction and play a role in cardiac or skeletal muscle dysfunction. Therapeutic measures will test if neutralization of cytokine-induced inflammation and reverting of qualitative changes in receptors would restore function to normal. Another aspect of our investigation is to study the mechanism of insulin resistance in critical illness. The insulin resistance, resulting in catabolism in muscle, is being investigated by assessment of insulin-mediated signal transduction pathways.
Preliminary studies indicate that post-insulin receptor defects present.
Molecular techniques including ligand binding, northern, southern, and western blots, PCR and nuclease protection assays are being used. Therapeutic strategies to correct aberrant insulin signal transduction is also being examined. If you'd like to be notified when this Web site is updated, you can join our mailing list .