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Taurine 10 pp 307–318Cite as

Taurine Improves Sexual Function in Streptozotocin-Induced Diabetic Rats

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Part of the book series: Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology ((AEMB,volume 975))

Abstract

Previous studies have identified that diabetic erectile dysfunction is associated with androgen and nitric oxide deficiency resulting from hyperglycemia. It has been demonstrated that taurine can stimulate testosterone secretion, increase nitric oxide synthase (NOS) activity and nitric oxide (NO) production, and reduce blood glucose levels in the diabetic animals. Furthermore, recent studies have found that taurine relaxes both the corpus cavernosum and the vasculature. Accordingly, we hypothesized that taurine might exert beneficial effects on erectile function of the diabetic rats. Here, we assessed the effects of taurine on sexual function in streptozotocin (STZ) -induced diabetic male rats. We observed that taurine treatment could markedly increase sexual response and mating ability of STZ-diabetic rats. The serum concentration of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH), luteinizing hormone (LH), follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and testosterone (T) were also significantly increased by taurine administration. Importantly, taurine supplementation notably increased mRNA levels and activity of endothelial NOS (eNOS) and neuronal NOS (nNOS), as well as NO and cGMP content, in the corpus cavernosum of the diabetic rats. In conclusion, the present data indicate that taurine can increase sexual function of STZ-induced diabetic male rats mainly by correcting the diabetes, increasing sexual desire, which is implicated in ameliorating the hypothalamic-pituitary-testicular axis function, and by improving penile erection, which requires increased signaling from the penile endothelial- and neuronal-dependent NO-cGMP pathway.

$Jiancheng Yang and Shumei Lin are contributed equally to this work.

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Abbreviations

cGMP:

Cyclic guanosine monophosphate

EJF:

Ejaculation frequency

EL:

Erection latency

eNOS:

Endothelial NOS

ERF:

Erection frequency

FSH:

Follicle-stimulating hormone

GnRH:

Gonadotropin-releasing hormone

HbA1c:

Glycosylated hemoglobin

IF:

Intromission frequency

iNOS:

Inducible NOS

LH:

Luteinizing hormone

MF:

Mount frequency

ML:

Mount latency

NANC:

Non-adrenergic and non-cholinergic

nNOS:

Neuronal NOS

NO:

Nitric oxide

NOS:

Nitric oxide synthase

STZ:

Streptozotocin

T:

Testosterone

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31272522, 31402160 and 31004042) and Program for Liaoning Excellent Talents in University (No. LJQ2014073).

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Liaoning Provincial Key Laboratory of Zoonosis, College of Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine, Shenyang Agricultural University, Shenyang, Liaoning, 110866, People’s Republic of China

      Jiancheng Yang, Shumei Lin, Gaofeng Wu, Qunhui Yang, Qiufeng Lv & Jianmin Hu

    2. Agricultural College of Eastern Liaoning University, Dandong, Liaoning, 118003, People’s Republic of China

      Yu Zhang

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    1. Jiancheng Yang
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    Correspondence to Jianmin Hu .

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    1. Department of Life Sciences, University of Seoul, Seoul, South Korea

      Dong-Hee Lee  & Ha Won Kim  & 

    2. College of Medicine, University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama, USA

      Stephen W. Schaffer

    3. Department of Developmental Neurobiology, NY State Institute for Basic Research in Developmental Disabilities, New York, USA

      Eunkyue Park

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    Yang, J. et al. (2017). Taurine Improves Sexual Function in Streptozotocin-Induced Diabetic Rats. In: Lee, DH., Schaffer, S.W., Park, E., Kim, H.W. (eds) Taurine 10. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol 975. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1079-2_27

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