Fig. 3.

Hyperammonemia induces skeletal muscle autophagic flux in vivo in mice. Hyperammonemia was induced in mice treated with 2.5 mmol·kg⁻¹·day⁻¹ Am.Ac for 7 days, followed by 0.4 mg colchicine (Colch)·kg⁻¹·day⁻¹ ip to block autophagy. This method permits us to quantify autophagic flux in vivo instead of only the static measurements of autophagy using immunoblots. Treatment of mice with Am.Ac enhances autophagic flux by ∼5× (n = 6 animals/treatment group). A: representative immunoblots. B: coumassie stain of the gel to demonstrate equal loading. C: densitometry data of LC3-II normalized to tubulin are shown. *P = 0.005 compared with controls. Veh, vehicle.