Recovery after severe skeletal muscle crush injury is a major research focus, especially for the armed forces and after major natural disasters. Evaluation of statistics in major American wars displays astonishing numbers of severely injured soldiers, many of them undergoing amputations of major limbs. Much of the research has focused on recovery from exercise-induced muscle injury but little is known about crush injury-induced recovery pattern. Cytokines such as interleukins and tumor-necrosis factors recruit immune cells to the site of injury to clear cell debris, repair cell injury, and stimulate the growth of satellite cells. The time course for the expression of proinflammatory cytokines IL-1beta, IL-6 and TNF-alpha is not well characterized in injured skeletal muscle of mice. The purpose of our investigation is to develop a crush injury animal model to study the expression pattern of these proinflammatory cytokines in the recovery process following crush injury. In our experiments, RNA was extracted and reverse transcribed into cDNA from the right gastrocnemius of injured mice for qPCR to determine the expression levels of IL-1beta, IL-6 and TNF-alpha at 0, 4, 8, 24, 48 and 72 hours post injury. From preliminary data, we see a linear increase in TNF-alpha expression from 0 to 24 hours, and a rapid increase in IL-1beta and IL-6 with a linear decrease over the following 4-24 hour time points. Analysis of later time points is ongoing. This work provides a baseline in preparation of treatment trials to study the healing process and related cytokine production following injury. By understanding the time course and functions of these cytokines and how they interact, we can contribute to the scientific foundation for evaluating the effectiveness of therapies used in managing wounded soldiers.