Developmental stability of taurine's activation on glycine receptors in cultured neurons of rat auditory cortex.

Taurine is an endogenous amino acid that can activate glycine and/or gamma-aminobutyric acid type A (GABA(A)) receptors in the central nervous system. During natural development, taurine's receptor target undergoes a shift from glycine receptors to GABA(A) receptors in cortical neurons. Here, we demonstrate that taurine's receptor target in cortical neurons remains stable during in vitro development. With whole-cell patch-clamp recordings, we found that taurine always activated glycine receptors, rather than GABA(A) receptors, in neurons of rat auditory cortex cultured for 5-22 days. Our results suggest that the functional sensitivity of glycine and GABA(A) receptors to taurine is critically regulated by their developmental environments.