Taurine protects against early and late skeletal muscle dysfunction secondary to ischaemia reperfusion injury

To assess the efficacy of the cytoprotective B-amino acid taurine in prevention of skeletal muscle dysfunction secondary to ischaemia-reperfusion (IR) injury.

Randomised controlled animal study.

Biomedical research laboratory, teaching hospital, Republic of Ireland.

96 Sprague Dawley rats.

Rats were randomised into three groups (n = 24/group): control (sham); ischaemia-reperfusion (untreated); and ischaemia-reperfusion + taurine. A further 24 rats were given taurine alone. The rat cremaster skeletal muscle model of four hours of ischaemia followed by reperfusion was used. Taurine 4%wt/vol was given in the animals' water throughout the experiment, beginning 48 hours before the ischaemia was initiated.

8 rats were killed from each group and muscle contractile function was assessed using electrical field stimulation in a tissue bath at 24 hrs, 48 hrs and 7 days.

Ischaemia followed by 24 hours, 48 hours or 7 days of reperfusion resulted in significant reduction in both muscle twitch and tetanic contractile function (p < 0.05). This was reversed by taurine, which resulted in significant preservation of twitch and tetanic contractility at all time points including one week of reperfusion (p < 0.05). There was no difference in muscle function between muscle treated with taurine after ischaemia-reperfusion and control muscle, with the same operation but without ischaemia, from 48 hours onwards.

These data show that pharmaceutical use of the endogenous amino acid taurine, unlike many-other agents, protects electrophysiological function in skeletal muscle against both early and late ischaemia-reperfusion injury.