Showing posts with label asam amino. Show all posts
Showing posts with label asam amino. Show all posts

Friday 24 June 2011

Serum Transthyretin

Serum Transthyretin
Transthyretin, known also as prealbumin or thyroxine-binding prealbumin, serves as a transport protein for thyroxine, and as a carier protein for RBP (Section 16.2.4). It has a longer half-life (i.e., 2d) (table 16.3) and a slightly larger body pool (0.010 g/kg body weight), compared to RBP, although the sensitivities of these two serum proteins to protein deprivation and treatment are similar. Transthyretin has a high content of the amino acid tryptophan and a high proportion of essential to nonessential amino acids. Thus it can be used as an indicator of the availability of essential amino acids in the body (Spiekerman, 1993.).
Serum Transthyretin can be used in hospital settings as a screening tool to identify patiens at risk for protein-energy malnutrition; more details are given in Section 27.1. Potter and Luxton (1999) examined the results of using Transthyretin as a routine diagnostic test for protein-energy malnutrition in emergency room admissions. They emphasized that Transthyretin was a more sensitive indicator of protein-energy malnurition than was serum albumin and was significantly associated with length of hospital stay.