Protein Synthesis

Protein synthesis is fundamental to all living organisms and it has been studied intensively and at varying levels of complexity. This chapter provides a comprehensive review of research on protein synthesis in fish, examines data to produce simple models describing protein synthesis in terms of key variables, and provides explanations for variations from expected or predicted rates of protein synthesis. The underlying there is to integrate information at the organismal level. A variety of methods for measuring protein synthesis have been used and comparison suggest they give similar results for fish. Major influences on protein synthesis are species, life-history stage, temperature, feeding, and nutrition. The effects of other factors such as pollutants, anoxia, salinity, and hormones have also been investigated. In growing fish between 20 and 50% of energy expenditure is associated with protein synthesis. Protein synthesis is, therefore, a major energy-demanding process in fish that is influenced by many environmental and biotic factors. © 2001.