Taurine as a driver for body protein renewal
The whole-body protein renewal greatly affects animal health, aging, and tissue remodeling. Taurine is a non-proteinogenic amino acid and accounts for about 0.1 % of the animal body. Recent studies showed that the blood taurine concentration decreased during aging and implied that taurine could be a key factor controlling aging process. However, whether taurine is merely a passenger or a driver of body protein renewal and aging remains unknown. We investigated the impact of taurine on the whole-body protein turnover in mammals using cattle as the model animals and explored the mechanisms of impact through employing 15N isotope labeling technique, nitrogen balance measurements, blood metabolomics and transcriptomics. The results revealed that taurine improved the whole-body protein degradation as well as synthesis through modulating the expressions of the genes involving RPS6KB1, PRSS42, COL1A2, ENSBTAG00000013055 and ENSBTAG00000038159 in whole-blood cells, shifted the metabolic and transcriptional signatures towards amino acid metabolism, resulting in increased body protein turnover and accretion. Our study demonstrated the impact of taurine on the body protein renewal in cattle and may benefit for the tissue remodeling and anti-aging in mammals.