Taurine Transport in Brush Border Membrane Vesicles Isolated from Hyper- and Normotaurinuric Mouse Kidney

The mouse strain C57BL is characterized by a high urinary fractional excretion of taurine. Hypertaurinuric [tau(-)] C57BL mice and three normal taurine ‘excretors’ [tau(+)] – Swiss, A/J, and C3H – were compared. Clearance experiments showed that fractional excretion of taurine was 4-8 times higher in C57BL relative to the other strains. Transport studies performed in brush border membrane vesicles, isolated from C57BL and C3H mouse renal cortex, showed that <i>D</i>-glucose uptake was similar in both strains while the taurine uptake appeared to be faster in tau(+) than in tau(-) mice. This difference was observed only in the presence of an inwardly directed NaCl gradient. The comparison of kinetic parameters showed a significant difference of apparent K_m values: 90.8 ± 11.4 µ<i>M</i> in tau(+) mice vs. 129.5 ± 17.1 µ<i>M </i>in tau(-) mice. J_max were not significantly different in both strains. These observations suggest a lower affinity of the taurine brush border membrane carrier in the hypertaurinuric strain as compared to the normotaurinuric mice. It is concluded that, in addition to a possible alteration of peritubular taurine efflux described by Rozen et al. (1983), a defect of taurine transport at the luminal membrane cannot be excluded and could account for the hypertaurinuria of the C57BL mice.