ABSTRACT
This study examines the Na+-dependent accumulation of the beta-amino acid, taurine, by brush border membrane vesicles isolated from nursing animals compared to uptake in adult animals. The diets fed to the mothers nursing these pups were altered so as to provide a low sulfur amino acid intake or a high taurine diet as well as conventional sulfur amino acid intake. Taurinuria is greater in nursing animals than in adult controls, but animals of all ages respond to exposure to the low sulfur amino acid intake by conservation of taurine and to the high taurine diet by hyperexcretion of taurine. Taurine uptake at 10 microM by brush border membrane vesicles is influenced by age in all groups and by diet in 14- and 21-day-old animals. A precession of uptake is seen both in terms of initial and peak rate of uptake with the lowest values in 7-day-old animals to the highest in adult. Greater brush border membrane vesicle uptake is found in 14- and 21-day-old rats after exposure to the low sulfur amino acid intake and reduced uptake after the HTD, whereas no dietary influence on uptake was found in 7-day-old rats. Neither the pattern of the time course of uptake nor the uptake values at equilibrium (45 min) are affected by age or diet. Kinetic analyses of concentration dependent uptake show that the maturational process involves a change in the Vmax of initial uptake.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
