Lethality of Taurine and Alcohol Coadministration in Mice - Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology - page 28

100

90

80

70

60

Dead
Alive

50

40

30

20

10

0

Control Ethanol

5g/kg

Taurine
6g/kg

E+T 2g/kg E+T 4g/kg E+T 6g/kg

Fig. 4.1 Lethality among 7-day-old mice co-administered with taurine and ethanol. Control, n = 6;
ethanol 5 g/kg, n = 6; taurine 6 g/kg, n = 6; E+T 2 g/kg, n = 6; E+T 4 g/kg, n = 12; E+T 6 g/kg,
n = 1 2

4.2.2 Measurements of Blood Glucose

A part of the adult and old mice were used for measurement of blood glucose levels.
Deaths of mice used for the glucose assays were not included in calculation of
lethality to avoid any possible influence on the rate of lethality arising from the
procedure of blood collection and hemorrhage. Blood samples were taken from
the tail vein of each animal at two time-points—in adult mice 2 h before the first
taurine injection to measure the baseline level of glucose and then 0.5 h after the
last taurine injection, and in old mice also 2 h before the first taurine injection and
then 1, 2, or 3 h after the last taurine injection to assess the effect of ethanol and
taurine on blood glucose. This difference in time-points of blood sampling in adult
and old mice was adapted to obtain samples maximally close to and immediately
prior to death. At each time-point duplicate blood samples (5 ml) were collected into
HemoCue Glucose cuvettes and immediately analyzed in a HemoCue B-Glucose
Analyzer (HemoCue AB, Ängelholm, Sweden).

4.2.3 Statistical Analyses

Data on mouse mortality are expressed in percentages (Figs. 4.1 - 4.3 ). Each value
for blood glucose is expressed as the mean ± SD. Statistical significance was deter-
mined by Student's t -test (for adult mice) and by one-way ANOVA with Tukey-
Kramer post hoc test (for old mice). Statistical comparison was made between
“before” and other time points for each experimental group separately. Differences
were considered statistically significant at a P value < 0.05.