RESUMO
Weanling rats were divided randomly into two groups: taurine (0.6%) Supplemented group (ST) and taurine-free group (TF) . The water maze was used to measure the effect of the taurine on the ability of learning and remembrance of the rats. Cell culture method was used to investigate the effect of taurine and zinc on fibrocellular proliferation. The results indicated that the ability of learning and remembrance of ST rats were significantly higher than that of the TF rats. The rats of ST group had significantly higher weight of whole brain, cerebral and cerebellum, cerebral zinc, copper, iron and free animo acids than those of the TF. The results of cell culture tests showed that fibroblast could grow very well in 10% calf serum medium even taurine was not added to the medium. However, they would not grow as well as when low level taurine was added.The response was a dose-dependent manner, reaching the maximum at 800?M. But cells viability decreases to 80% of the controls at 51mM taurine. Nevertheless, if a combination of tau-rine and zinc was added, there was a striking inhibitive effect on cell proliferation and showed dose-dependent manner. These results suggest that taur-ine-Zn/taurine might act as a regulator in human cell proliferation.From the above results, it is suggested that taurine may play an important role in brain development.