Plasma and urinary taurine in epilepsy.

A previous study showed that significantly less taurine is excreted in the urine by epileptics than by control subjects. The difference is ascribed to genetic variation in taurine transport governed by a pair of codominant polymorphic alleles. The present study of plasma taurine concentrations and urinary taurine output confirms previous findings among epileptics and provides evidence that some anticonvulsant medications may affect taurine transport. The posited codominant alleles represent the first single-locus component in the polygenic complexes creating susceptibility to seizures and epitomizes the small additive effects classically attributed to such genes.