Abstract
Taurine as an essential amino acid in the brain could play an important role in protecting the fetal brain of intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR). The hippocampus with IUGR showed neural metabolic disorder and structure changed that affected memory and learning ability. This study was aimed to identify the effect of taurine supplementation on the metabolism alterations and cellular composition changes of the hippocampus in IUGR immature rats. Metabolite concentrations were determined by magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) in the hippocampus of juvenile rats with IUGR following taurine supplementation with antenatal or postnatal supply. The composition of neural cells in the hippocampus was observed by immunohistochemical staining (IHC) and western blotting (WB). Antenatal taurine supplementation increased the ratios of N-acetylaspartate (NAA) /creatine (Cr) and glutamate (Glu) /Cr of the hippocampus in the IUGR immature rats, but reduced the ratios of choline (Cho) /Cr and myoinositol (mI) /Cr. At the same time, the protein expression of NeuN in the IUGR rats was increased through intrauterine taurine supplementation, and the GFAP expression was reduced. Especially the effect of antenatal taurine was better than postpartum. Furthermore, there existed a positive correlation between the NAA/Cr ratio and the NeuN protein expression (R = 0.496 p < 0.001 IHC; R = 0.568 p < 0.001 WB), the same results existed in the relationship between the mI/Cr ratio and the GFAP protein expression (R = 0.338 p = 0.019 IHC; R = 0.440 p = 0.002 WB). Prenatal taurine supplementation can better improve hippocampal neuronal metabolism by increasing NAA / Cr ratio related to the number of neurons and reducing Cho / Cr ratio related to the number of glial cells.
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The present study was sponsored by Fujian provincial health technology project (Grant No: 2019-ZQN-11).
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The present study was sponsored by Fujian provincial health technology project (Grant No: 2019-ZQN-11).
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Dr. Qiong Fang participated in the study design, experiment, data analysis and wrote the manuscript;
Dr. Jing Liu contributed to study design, data analysis and manuscript preparation;
Dr. Lang Chen and Dr. Qiaobin Chen participated in the manuscript revision and data analysis;
Dr. Yan Wang and Zuanfang Li participated in the collection and analyses of the MRS data;
Dr. Wei Fu and Dr. Ying Liu contributed to data analysis.
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Fang, Q., Liu, J., Chen, L. et al. Taurine supplementation improves hippocampal metabolism in immature rats with intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) through protecting neurons and reducing gliosis. Metab Brain Dis 37, 2077–2088 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11011-021-00896-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11011-021-00896-0