Taurine, the most abundant, semiessential, sulfur-containing amino acid, is well known to lower blood pressure (BP) in hypertensive animal models. However, no rigorous clinical trial has validated whether this beneficial effect of taurine occurs in human hypertension or prehypertension, a key stage in the development of hypertension. In this randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study, w...

Dutka TL, Lamboley CR, Murphy RM, Lamb GD. Acute effects of taurine on sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca accumulation and contractility in human type I and type II skeletal muscle fibers. J Appl Physiol 117: 797–805, 2014. First published August 14, 2014; doi:10.1152/japplphysiol.00494.2014.—Taurine occurs in high concentrations in muscle and is implicated in numerous physiological processes, yet its e...

Electro-acupuncture (EA) partially inhibited epilepsy with great success. The biological basis underlying EA anti-convulsion remained uncertain, which resulted in limited application and slow improvement of acupuncture. Our previous study indicated that taurine may play an inhibitory role against epilepsy as an inhibitory amino acid in the central nervous system and EA may inhibit epilepsy via ...

The overexpression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is known to be involved in the pathogenesis of diabetic nephropathy. In this study, the protective effects of taurine on diabetic nephropathy along with its underlying mechanism were investigated. Experimental animals were divided into three groups: LETO rats as normal group (n = 10), OLETF rats as diabetic control group (n = 10), ...

Sir, The amino acid taurine (2-aminoethanesulphonic acid) is present in high concentrations in mammalian tissues, especially skeletal muscle, heart and the central nervous system. Taurine has several beneficial physiological and biochemical effects in vitro and in vivo in experimental animals. It has cardiotonic actions, participates in osmoregulation, stabilizes the membrane potential in skele...

Taurine is an important regulator of cellular ion transport and osmotic balance, aspects that are pivotal to renal function. The kidney not only regulates body taurine status, but emerging information also suggests that body taurine status is of consequence for renal function. While reduction in endogenous taurine stores can attenuate renal excretory function, exogenous taurine supplementation ...

Although it has been suggested that taurine is the main endogenous neurotransmitter acting on glycine receptors, the implications of glycine receptor-mediated taurine actions on immature neocortical networks have not been addressed yet. To investigate the influence of taurine on the excitability of neuronal networks in the immature neocortex, we performed whole-cell patch-clamp recordings from ...

The substantia gelatinosa (SG) of the trigeminal subnucleus caudalis (Vc) has been known for the processing and transmission of orofacial nociceptive information. Taurine, one of the most plentiful free amino-acids in humans, has proved to be involved in pain modulation. In this study, using whole-cell patch clamp technique, we investigated the direct membrane effects of taurine and the action ...

Cultured bovine aortic endothelial (BAE) cells expressed a Na(+)/Cl(-)-dependent taurine uptake activity that saturated with an apparent K(0.5) of approximately 4.9 microM for taurine and was inhibited by beta-alanine, guanidinoethane sulfonate, and homotaurine. We isolated a taurine transporter clone from a BAE cell cDNA library that revealed >91% sequence identity at the amino acid level to t...

Net taurine transport across the frog retinal pigment epithelium-choroid was measured as a function of extracellular potassium concentration, [K+]o. The net rate of retina-to-choroid transport increased monotonically as [K+]o increased from 0.2 mM to 2 mM on the apical (neural retinal) side of the tissue. No further increase was observed when [k+]o was elevated to 5 mM. The [K+]o changes that m...