Relative contribution of diet and biosynthesis to the taurine content of the adult rat.

The relative contribution of diet and biosynthesis to the taurine content of the rat has been determined quantitatively under various dietary conditions. Rats were maintained on diets containing [3H]taurine and/or [35S]methionine of known amounts and specific activities, and subsequently the specific activity of taurine in various tissues was determined. This approach gives a quantitative measure of how much taurine is biosynthesized versus how much is derived from the diet regardless of the biosynthetic route or site of biosynthesis in the animal. With no taurine in the diet, over an 87-day period, 54% of the taurine in the animal had been biosynthesized. This fell to 29% if taurine was present in the diet, and the contribution of dietary taurine to body pools rose to 58%. These changes in biosynthetic contributions were not accompanied by an alteration in the rate of biosynthesis but by an alteration in rate of excretion. When the amounts of biosynthesized taurine appearing in the urine over 63 days was added to the amounts found in the carcass, 3.1 mmol were found to be biosynthesized by animals receiving taurine in the diet as compared to 2.9 mmol in animals on a taurine-deficient diet. In any one experiment, the contribution of diet or biosynthesis is invariant from tissue to tissue indicating that the rate of exchange of taurine between tissues is faster than the rate of elimination of taurine from the body.