Taurine and Its Anticancer Functions: In Vivo and In Vitro Study

Taurine (2-aminoethanesulfonic acid) is a natural amino acid that is found widely in all mammalian tissues. Several studies have demonstrated that taurine has anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and hypoglycemic effects. Recently, taurine not only mitigates the side effects of chemotherapy in cancer but also possesses antitumor properties, including inhibiting cancer cell proliferation and inducing apoptosis in certain cancers by differential regulating proapoptotic and antiapoptotic proteins. Antitumor studies of taurine are still in their infancy, and the mechanism of its antitumor effect is not fully understood. In this regard, it is worthwhile to study the antitumor mechanism of taurine, which may provide clues to develop new synthetic therapeutic molecules. In this mini review, we summarize the main effects of taurine that have shown suppressing actions in the initiation and progression of cancers. The underlying molecular mechanism also suggested that taurine can be a potential clinical application in tumor therapy. In addition, with the in-depth study of different biological functions of taurine, we found that many systemic diseases are associated with taurine. In this review, the research progress of taurine's antitumor effect is briefly summarized including the in vivo and in vitro studies in our laboratory.