No beneficial effects of taurine application on oxygen free radical production after hemorrhagic shock in rats.

Oxygen free radical generation contributes to the reinfusion damage after hemorrhagic shock. Taurine has been proposed to have radical scavenging properties under certain experimental conditions. Therefore the present study was undertaken to investigate if taurine would be able to attenuate adverse effects of shock/resuscitation in male rats (fasted over night). Under pentobarbital anesthesia, hemorrhagic shock (HS) was induced for 1 h by bleeding of the animal [mean arterial blood pressure (MAP) = 40 mm Hg] followed by shed blood reinfusion and another 1 h period of resuscitation. Rats were divided into two groups: Treated rats (n = 6) were injected with taurine (40 mg/kg body mass) prior to withdrawal of shed blood; untreated rats (n = 9) received respective volumes of a normal saline solution. In untreated animals, free radical induced lipid peroxidation was documented by an increase of malondialdehyde (MDA) in the systemic circulation (nmol/ml; HPLC measurement) from 1.06 +/- 0.08 during normotension (NT) to 1.35+/- 0.18** 1 h after resuscitation (RS). Accordingly, plasma levels of alanine aminotransferase (ALT) (11 +/- 2; 35 +/- 12; 94 +/- 44 U/l, NT; HS; RS) and ammonia (120 +/- 39; 532 +/- 161; 224 +/- 101 micrograms/dl) changed significantly during the experimental protocol. Hepatic ATPase-content as an indicator of energetic status of the liver fell from 4.8 +/- 0.83 to 0.56 +/- 0.27 after HS and recovered to only 2.7 +/- 1.6 mumol/g after RS. Leukocyte infiltration of the liver was followed by tissue levels of myeloperoxidase (MPO) which did not change during HS, but rose during RS (37.9 +/- 18.5; 38.6 +/- 16.4; 77.5 +/- 24; arbitrary units), documenting an inflammatory reaction after HS. Taurine treated rats showed levels of MDA not different from untreated rats after RS; also no differences were observed concerning enzyme concentrations and ammonia levels. The liver tissue levels of ATP and MPO revealed no differences between the two groups during the various periods of the experiment. Liver tissue perfusion, as measured by Laser Doppler flowmetry, also did not show significant differences between both groups. MAP was significantly higher in the taurine-treated rats during the first 40 min of resuscitation. It is concluded that even a relatively high dose of taurine failed to attenuate the impact of oxygen free radicals and did not improve the recovery of the rats during the early resuscitation period.