Antisera against taurine: quantitative characterization of the antibody specificity and its application to immunohistochemical study in the rat brain.

An antiserum against taurine was generated in rabbits by immunization with taurine that was conjugated to carrier protein via glutaraldehyde. When the antiserum was applied to immunohistochemistry, structures with taurine-like immunoreactivity were observed in both neuronal and glial components of rat brain. The specificity of the serum was quantitatively examined using an enzyme-linked immunoassay method, which has been newly developed for detecting such small molecules as amino acids. The best serum obtained had a high titer against taurine. It showed low cross-reactivity with taurine metabolites and with other amino acids (less than 0.5%), while considerably higher reactivities were noted in the case of taurine-containing peptides such as gamma-glutamyl-taurine and glycyl-taurine. The results indicate that much care should be taken with taurine peptides in the evaluation of immunohistochemical results using taurine antiserum.