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Departments of 1 Internal Medicine and 2 Pharmacology, School of Medicine, University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama 36688
Three processes that have been implicated in
ischemic injury are impaired Ca2+
movement, altered osmoregulation, and membrane remodeling. Because the
amino acid, taurine, affects all three processes, it seemed logical
that changes in the myocardial content of taurine might affect ischemic
injury. To test this hypothesis, infarct size and areas at risk were
compared in isolated hearts from control and taurine-depleted rats
after a 45-min ligation of the left anterior descending coronary artery
and 2 h of reperfusion. Hearts of rats treated for 4 wk with the
taurine inhibitor,
-alanine, exhibited a 57% reduction in the
infarct size-to-risk area ratio. The degree of cardioprotection was
found to correlate (r = 0.85) with the
extent of taurine depletion, the latter dependent on the length of
-alanine feeding. When the taurine-depleted rats were fed taurine,
myocardial taurine levels were restored and the cardioprotection was
lost. However, addition of neither
-alanine (3%) nor taurine (20 mM) to the perfusion medium altered infarct size. We conclude that
taurine depletion renders the heart resistant to injury caused by
regional ischemia.
-alanine; infarct size; osmoregulation
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