How ground squirrels spend half of the year curled up without consuming a thing and yet manage to maintain their protein balance, hardly losing any muscle mass, has actually been a long-standing mystery. A research study published in Science today (January 27) uses a hint to this phenomenon: bacteria living in the gut of thirteen-lined ground squirrels (Ictidomys tridecemlineatus) convert urea, a particle that collects throughout muscle wasting, into nitrogen that can be used to construct new proteins, possibly neutralizing muscle loss. Earlier work by Carey and her associates had shown that muscle volume in thirteen-lined ground squirrels decreases throughout the early stage of hibernation, only to later boost– as if their bodies begin to prepare for spring. Squirrels– like all vertebrates and lots of other animals– do not have ureases, the enzymes needed to break down urea. After the squirrels were euthanized, liver tissue and skeletal muscle were gathered, and in both, microbiome-intact people had considerably higher quantities of identified nitrogen integrated into their proteins than the microbiome-depleted animals.
How ground squirrels spend half of the year curled up without eating a thing and yet manage to keep their protein balance, hardly losing any muscle mass, has actually been an enduring mystery. A research study published in Science today (January 27) provides an idea to this phenomenon: bacteria residing in the gut of thirteen-lined ground squirrels (Ictidomys tridecemlineatus) transform urea, a particle that builds up throughout muscle wasting, into nitrogen that can be utilized to develop new proteins, possibly combating muscle loss. After the squirrels were euthanized, liver tissue and skeletal muscle were collected, and in both, microbiome-intact people had considerably greater quantities of labelled nitrogen included into their proteins than the microbiome-depleted animals.
