Taurine in developing brain, liver and muscle in infants.

In order to evaluate tissue taurine storage during pregnancy, we determined the taurine concentration of a skeletal muscle (abdominal wall), the brain (left parietal lobe), and the liver (right lobe) in 41 children aged 1-10 days, born after 24-41 weeks gestation. Samples were obtained during autopsy. Taurine dosage was carried out by gas chromatography. Muscle and liver taurine concentrations decreased with the duration of gestation. For a given duration of pregnancy, there was no correlation between birth weight and these three tissue concentrations. From these results, we estimate that the fetus accumulates 35-40 mumol/24 h of taurine during the last 3 months of gestation.