Accelerated Cellular Uptake and Metabolism of L-Thyroxine during Acute Salmonella typhimurium Sepsis

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The effects of acute Salmonella typhimurium sepsis on the kinetics of peripheral L-thyroxine (T4) distribution and metabolism and on serum total and free T4 concentrations were studied in rhesus monkeys inoculated i.v. with either heat-killed or viable organisms. The rate of disappearance of labeled T4 from serum was increased within 8 h after inoculation of monkeys with either heat-killed or viable Salmonella. The effects of the heat-killed organisms were transient and no longer evident by 16 h postinoculation. The monkeys inoculated with the viable Salmonella experienced a 2-3 day febrile, septic illness that was accompanied by an increase in the absolute rate of T4 disposal. In the infected monkeys, serum total T4 and endogenously labeled protein-bound iodine concentrations fell significantly during the period of acute sepsis and then rose during convalescence to values that exceeded the preinoculation values, suggesting that thyroidal secretion of hormone had increased in response to a primary depletion of the peripheral hormonal pool. Total cellular and hepatic uptakes of T4 were enhanced by 4 h after inoculation of monkeys with either heat-killed or viable Salmonella, but the increase in total cellular uptake persisted for 24 h only in the monkeys inoculated with the viable organisms. These alterations in T4 kinetics could neither be correlated with changes in the binding of T4 in plasma nor attributed to an increase in vascular permeability. Moreover, they could not be ascribed to an in vitro product of bacterial growth, suggesting that the presence of the organisms themselves was required. An acceleration of T4 disappearance was also observed during Escherichia coli and Diplococcus pucumoniae bacteremias. Our findings are consistent with a primary increase in the cellular uptake and metabolism of T4 during bacterial sepsis, possibly related to phagocytic cell function in the host.

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