Role of Taurine in Spinal Cord Injury

Abstract

Taurine is a sulfur amino acid. It is found endogenously in human and several others tissues. It is significantly in high concentration in mammals. Human body contains about 0.1% of body weight as taurine. It has a number of physiological and pharmacological actions. It is also used in the therapy of important organs dysfunctions. In spinal cord it has inhibitory effects; like antiepileptic and anti-nociceptive. Taurine also inhibits substance p induced biting and scratching behavior. In spinal cord injury elevated level of taurine has been observed. Higher level of taurine has been also recorded in SCI therapy using, known clinical agent methyl prednisolone (MP). The increased taurine concentration seems to be involved in protection and regeneration of tissues following injury. In SCI along with physical injury secondary activities also takes place which are complex in nature. Secondary activity includes vascular events and activation of neutrophils, resulting endothelial damage. Activated neutrophils; release a variety of inflammatory mediators such as myeloperoxidase (MPO), reactive oxygen species (ROS), and some others. It is believed that taurine exert its protective action through scavenging of ROS and down regulating several other inflammatory mediators like tumor necrosis factors (TNFalpha). The inside of mechanism reveals toxic substance HOCl is produced by MPO is converted to less toxic substances through scavenging action of taurine. Amino acid therapy has its own limitations and to over come such situation there is a need to develop small, simple lipophilic analogs of taurine. Use of taurine analogs has provided better results; for example, N- chloro taurine (NCT) which is a taurine derivative has exhibited therapeutic advances over taurine. Taurine and its analogs with sound experimental and clinical support may constitute a new class of therapeutic agents for SCI., and perhaps this review may provide enough material to think of this.

Taurine supplementation in diet for olive flounder at low water temperature

“…Similarly, Li et al (2016) observed significant increase in lysozyme activity of yellow catfish (Pelteobagrus fulvidraco). Therefore, these results indicate that taurine not only can improve health and immunity of mammals (Kingston et al 2004;Gupta et al 2006), but also can improve the health and innate immunity of fish. IGF-1 mRNA expression was assessed in this study as a new parameter to determine whether taurine supplementation might have effect on gene expression.…”

“…Interestingly, our results showed that IGF-1 mRNA expression level was significantly increased by 1.5% taurine supplementation. Some studies have been conducted to determine whether taurine supplementation could affect fish at gene expression level (Kingston et al 2004;Gupta et al 2006). The function of IGF-1 in fish is similar to that in human or mammals, and IGF-1 can only exert nutritional regulation in the liver of fish (Duan et al 1994;Duan 1998).…”

Taurine and Brain Development: Trophic or Cytoprotective Actions?

“…Taurine protection has been found also in cells damaged by b-amyloid and bilirubin. Some taurine cell protection is also reported during ischemia-reperfusion [12], tissue crushing [13], fibrosis [14] and exposure to light [15]. Cytoprotective actions of taurine have been examined in different organs, particularly lung, liver, heart, brain and kidney, but some studies also report taurine protective actions in spinal cord, urinary bladder, retinal pigment epithelium, erythrocytes, and stomach.…”

Amino Acids in Pathological Gambling and in its Alleviation: Pharmacological Approaches

“…Since taurine levels recorded in CSF of pathological gamblers are very high, consideration of its involvement is warranted. In several cases where taurine level was recorded to be elevated, the increase reflected greater involvement of taurine in protective mechanisms and in such situations exogenous addition of taurine provided additional benefits [12,14]. There is a long list of potential actions for taurine In the CNS, with moderate to significant effects.…”

“…In PG too there is alternation in their concentrations. Taurine which is synthesized from cystein has a wide spectrum of central actions, from anticonvulsant to anti-aggressive and anti tremor to many more [10][11][12][13][14].…”