Muscle protein is part of this process. In humans, up to five to six percent of muscle mass per day is chewed up just to be replaced. This amount of turnover is rather remarkable. If you make more muscle tissue than the five to six percent, you grow. If you make less than that, you waste.
Growth is the balance.
Since the 1970s, when calpains and calpastatin were first identified, scientists around the world have worked to describe their action more fully and perhaps develop pharmaceutical ways of regulating them. This basic research, carried out at the UA and other institutions may lead to advances in treating heart disease, strokes, muscular dystrophy, and also contribute to improvements in the way domestic animals develop muscles consumed as meat. In the laboratory, Goll and his associates, Parker Antin, Constance Temm, Valery Thompson, Mei Cong, and Jinyang Cong use a variety of tissues including human placental tissue, bovine skeletal muscle, and blood platelets from humans or cows. They watch how the calpains and calpastatin are produced, how they behave, and how genes may be disrupted. They notice what happens when the balance of calpain activity to calpastatin activity changes.