Abstract
Taurine is a semi-essential, the most abundant free amino acid in the human body, with a six times higher concentration in platelets than any other amino acid. It is highly beneficial for the organism, has many therapeutic actions, and is currently approved for heart failure treatment in Japan. Taurine has been repeatedly reported to elicit an inhibitory action on platelet activation and aggregation, sustained by in vivo, ex vivo, and in vitro animal and human studies. Taurine showed effectiveness in several pathologies involving thrombotic diathesis, such as diabetes, traumatic brain injury, acute ischemic stroke, and others. As human prospective studies on thrombosis outcome are very difficult to carry out, there is an obvious need to validate existing findings, and bring new compelling data about the mechanisms underlying taurine and derivatives antiplatelet action and their antithrombotic potential. Chloramine derivatives of taurine proved a higher stability and pronounced selectivity for platelet receptors, raising the assumption that they could represent future potential antithrombotic agents. Considering that taurine and its analogues display permissible side effects, along with the need of finding new, alternative antithrombotic drugs with minimal side effects and long-term action, the potential clinical relevance of this fascinating nutrient and its derivatives requires further consideration.
Highlights
Taurine and related compounds have been repeatedly pointed as modulating factors of platelet function [113,119], but the interest regarding their influence on blood coagulation dates from the early 1950s and 1960s [120,121]
Research on taurine effects over hemostasis started with the observation that bile acids and their salts elicit a considerable inhibition on platelet aggregation induced by various agonists (ADP, collagen, and others) [122,123,124,125]
Taurine is approved in Japan as a therapeutic agent for heart failure treatment, and only the lack of large-scale phase 3 clinical trials restricts taurine use as a therapeutic agent in several other pathologies for the treatment of which it has been shown to be effective
Summary
Initial data suggesting a likely antithrombotic role of taurine came from observational studies which identified high levels of taurine in hibernating animals while acclimating to hypothermic conditions. Apart from the protective effect regarding dyslipidemia, taurine positively influences other components of metabolic syndrome (obesity, hypertension, and diabetes), and even showed effectiveness in combating diabetes complications, including nephropathy, retinopathy, neuropathy, and cardiomyopathy [17,20,79,80,81,82,83,84,85] Because these cardiovascular risk markers have been independently associated with coagulation abnormalities, such as enhanced platelet aggregation, activated humoral coagulation, or suppressed fibrinolysis [86,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,96], there is reason to believe the antithrombotic properties of taurine could partially be ascribed to its beneficial influence on these conventional cardiovascular risk factors. Thereby, taurine contributes to the attenuation of the functional (electrical) remodeling and diastolic function impairment, leading to a reduced risk for arrhythmias onset [29,30,31,32,103], which would otherwise predispose to intracavitary thrombosis and further systemic embolism
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