Effect of taurine on calcium paradox and ischemic heart failure

The loss of mechanical function in rat hearts subjected to either the calcium-paradox or global ischemia heart failure models was found to correlate with decreases in myocardial taurine levels. Therefore, the effect of taurine treatment was assessed in the two failure procedures. The presence of taurine protected against loss of mechanical function resulting from the calcium paradox and prevented both the large decline in sarcolemmal ATPase activities and the increase in sarcolemmal calcium binding normally associated with this model. Parallel studies on reperfused, taurine-untreated ischemic hearts showed only minor changes in these sarcolemmal functions. Taurine treatment normalized the slight increase in calcium binding associated with ischemia, but had no observable effect on recovery of mechanical function. Although taurine returns selected parameters of the sarcolemma toward normal in both models, it only improves mechanical function in the paradox model. This suggests that calcium paradox-induced heart failure is more closely associated with sarcolemmal dysfunction than ischemic heart failure.