Impact of taurine on red blood cell metabolism and implications for blood storage

Abstract

BACKGROUND Taurine is an antioxidant that is abundant in some common energy drinks. Here we hypothesized that the antioxidant activity of taurine in red blood cells (RBCs) could be leveraged to counteract storage‐induced oxidant stress. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS Metabolomics analyses were performed on plasma and RBCs from healthy volunteers (n = 4) at baseline and after consumption of a whole can of a common, taurine‐rich (1000 mg/serving) energy drink. Reductionistic studies were also performed by incubating human RBCs with taurine ex vivo (unlabeled or 13C15N‐labeled) at increasing doses (0, 100, 500, and 1000 μmol/L) at 37°C for up to 16 hours, with and without oxidant stress challenge with hydrogen peroxide (0.1% or 0.5%). Finally, we stored human and murine RBCs under blood bank conditions in additives supplemented with 500 μmol/L taurine, before metabolomics and posttransfusion recovery studies. RESULTS Consumption of energy drinks increased plasma and RBC levels of taurine, which was paralleled by increases in glycolysis and glutathione (GSH) metabolism in the RBC. These observations were recapitulated ex vivo after incubation with taurine and hydrogen peroxide. Taurine levels in the RBCs from the REDS‐III RBC‐Omics donor biobank were directly proportional to the total levels of GSH and glutathionylated metabolites and inversely correlated to oxidative hemolysis measurements. Storage of human RBCs in the presence of taurine improved energy and redox markers of storage quality and increased posttransfusion recoveries in FVB mice. CONCLUSION Taurine modulates RBC antioxidant metabolism in vivo and ex vivo, an observation of potential relevance to transfusion medicine.

COVID-19 infection results in alterations of the kynurenine pathway and fatty acid metabolism that correlate with IL-6 levels and renal status

“…In contrast, other metabolites associated with hypercoagulability, such as homocysteine (62) (which increases in Down syndrome (63)), were decreased in COVID-19 patient sera. The latter may be explained by the apparent increase in oxidant stress in COVID-19 patients, as suggested by increased serum levels of methionine sulfoxide and cystine, along with decreases in antioxidants, such as cysteine and taurine (64) (but, interestingly, not reduced glutathione). Conversely, decreased serum acylcarnitine levels, which may have anticoagulant function (65), is consistent with a potential hypercoagulable phenotype in these patients.…”

Evidence for structural protein damage and membrane lipid remodeling in red blood cells from COVID-19 patients

“…Similarly, the present study was not sufficiently powered to determine the impact of COVID-19 on RBCs as a function of other biological variables, including subject sex, age, ethnicity, blood type, and habits (e.g., smoking); these are all associated with the RBC's capacity to cope with oxidant stress and modulate energy metabolism. 20,[48][49][50][51][52] 51. D'Alessandro A, Fu X, Reisz JA, et al Stored RBC metabolism as a function of caffeine levels.…”

Taurine Reverses Oxidative Damages and Restores the Muscle Function in Overuse of Exercised Muscle

“…However, exercise-induced ROS generation may primarily attack the sulfhydryl (-SH) terminal of cysteine, which is the location where several cellular events are organized for the synthesis of proteins including taurine (Kolossov et al, 2015), and thus exercise-induced ROS is an important factor for organizing the above-mentioned scenario (Figure 1). For example, muscle overuse-induced cysteine oxidation and its intermediate cysteine sulfinic acid oxidation result in a reduced level of taurine and glutathione synthesis (GSH), ultimately compromising the taurine-induced benefits in the muscle, such as influencing GSH level and glutathionylation (Bertolone et al, 2020). Glutathionylation caused inhibition of reversible cysteine oxidation is compromised, which may fail to protect from oxidative damage during muscle contraction (Qin et al, 2013).…”