Abstract
Cats are dependent on an adequate dietary source of taurine to maintain their body pools because their endogenous taurine biosynthesis is limited by a low activity of cysteinesulfinic acid decarboxylase (7). Without such a dietary source, cats become taurine depleted and develop a number of abnormalities, including retinal degeneration (6) and dilated cardiomyopathy (21). Taurine deficiency in female cats has an adverse effect on feline reproduction resulting in excessive fetal wastage due to abortion or resorption, stillborn and low-birth-weight live kittens (27,28). Only 40% of kittens born alive survive to weaning at 8 weeks after birth. Kittens born alive from taurine-deficient mothers have significantly smaller brain weights than kittens from mothers fed a taurine-sufficient diet, associated with greatly reduced taurine concentrations. Those kittens from taurine-deficient mothers that survive to weaning at 8 weeks after birth also have smaller brain weights and taurine concentrations than kittens from mothers fed a taurine-sufficient diet, and have an abnormal morphology in the cerebellum (29) and visual cortex (18,19), at least.
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Sturman, J.A., Lu, P., Xu, YX., Imaki, H. (1994). Feline Maternal Taurine Deficiency: Effects on Visual Cortex of the Offspring. A Morphometric and Immunohistochemical Study. In: Huxtable, R.J., Michalk, D. (eds) Taurine in Health and Disease. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol 359. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-1471-2_38
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