The scientific community has been rocking the world recently! First, Vijay K. Yadav’s team at the National Institute of Immunology in India revealed in 《Science》 that Taurine has the amazing potential to slow down aging. Then, a team of academician Fan Daiming from Xijing Hospital published an article in the top journal 《Cell》, which once again triggered a hot debate: Taurine can actually help tumor immunity!
How does Taurine manage to slow down aging?
Vijay K. Yadav’s team has found that Taurine reduces cellular senescence, protects telomerase, inhibits mitochondrial dysfunction, reduces DNA damage, and attenuates inflammatory responses, providing a new possible strategy for slowing down the aging process, so how exactly does it work?
Experiments have shown that Taurine concentrations decline with aging, yet taurine supplementation increased the average lifespan of female mice by 12% and male mice by 10%. To explore whether Taurine deficiency is a driver of aging, the researchers validated the multiple mechanisms by which Taurine fights aging.
1、 Reduce cellular senescence: It was experimentally observed that taurine supplementation was able to reduce the intensity of SA β-Gal staining (a biomarker of cellular senescence) in mouse tissues. In neuronal culture experiments, taurine supplementation increased the survival rate of neurons treated with p-methoxy oxalylurea (a DNA damage agent that induces cellular senescence).
2、Protection of telomerase function: In a telomerase-deficient zebrafish model (tert-/-(G2)), taurine supplementation inhibited cellular senescence starting from 2 days of embryonic age (dpf) and increased the survival rate of zebrafish embryos at concentrations of 300 mM and 10 mM.
3、Inhibition of mitochondrial dysfunction: By measuring the level of tm5U-tRNA in tRNALeu(UUA), it was found that taurine-supplemented mice maintained higher levels of tm5U-tRNA modification during aging, which helped to promote the translation of the ND6 protein (a key component of mitochondrial complex I).
4、Reduced DNA damage: Taurine supplementation reduced serum levels of 8-OH-dG (an indicator of oxidative DNA damage) in aged mice. In addition, experiments detected that taurine-supplemented mice had lower levels of the DNA damage marker H2Ax in muscle, suggesting that Taurine may protect cells by reducing DNA damage.
