Lethality of Taurine and Alcohol Coadministration in Mice - Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology - page 32

12

10

8

* *

Control

*

**

6

Ethanol

*

Taurine

4

E+T

2

0

Before 1 2 3

Time after last taurine injection (h)

Fig. 4.5 Drop in blood glucose level in 12- to 13-month-old mice after taurine and ethanol coad-
ministration. Control, n = 3; ethanol 6 g/kg, n = 4; taurine 6 g/kg, n = 5; E 6 g/kg +T 6 g/kg, n = 5

8.5 ± 1.3 mmol/l to 6.1 ± 1.0 mmol/l at 1 h after the last taurine injection. This
decrease was preserved for the next 2 h, being 4.3 ± 2.0 mmol/l before the death of
the animals (Fig. 4.5 ). The high SD (2.0 mmol/l) at this last time-point results from
substantial differences in blood glucose levels in mice treated with ethanol and tau-
rine. The individual differences varied between 2.2 and 6.0 mmol/l. Taurine alone
lowered blood glucose in the old mice from 8.8 ± 1.0 mmol/l to 5.6 ± 1.8 mmol/l in
1 h after the last taurine treatment. The blood glucose level increased slightly during
the next 2 h to reach almost to the level before experiments. Ethanol alone did not
affect the blood glucose level.

4.4 Discussion

Taurine (2-aminoethanesulfonic acid) is a sulfur-containing amino acid abundant in
electrically excitable tissues such as the brain, retina, heart, and skeletal muscles
(Lourenco and Camilo 2002 ). It is involved in a wide range of physiological processes
such as osmoregulation, lipid metabolism, intracellular calcium regulation, neuronal
development, neuromodulation, and cell protection (Huxtable 1992 ; Saransaari and
Oja 2000 ; Anderzhanova et al. 2006 ; Oja and Saransaari 2007 ) . Growing evidence
indicates that taurine is also involved in the regulation of apoptosis (Takatani et al.
2004 ; Ulrich-Merzenich et al. 2007 ; Taranukhin et al. 2008 ; Wu et al. 2009 ) . Clinically
taurine has been tested for the treatment of a variety of diseases, including for example
alcoholism (Birdsall 1998 ). Previously, we successfully used taurine at a dose 2 g/kg
to save about 50% of dying neurons from ethanol-induced apoptosis in the developing
cerebellum of 7-day-old mice (Taranukhin et al. 2009, 2010, 2012 ) . We now increased
the taurine dosage two- and threefold in an attempt to obtain more significant benefits