Antisera against taurin: Quantitative characterization of the antibody specificity and its applcation to immunohistochemical study in the rat brain

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Abstract
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 withtaurine-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 taurinecontaining peptides susch as γ-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.