I was pleased and at the same time filled with some misgivings when Professors Alberto Giotti end Ryan Huxtable asked me to introduce this book. The book is the outcome of the Symposium held in Firenze-San Miniato (PI), October 6-9, 1986. The symposium was entitled "Sulfur Amino Acids, Peptides and Related Compounds" and was the 7th international symposium on taurine ßnd assooiated substances. It is always difficult to introduce, with the right brevity end emphasis, a topic which has been studied in depth by numerous experte. Nevertheless, I shall do my best to give a historical perspeotive of the subjects of the meeting which I consider to be very important for the frontiers of researoh on taurine. ~he following topios have also beoome coherent areas of study during the development of researoh on taurine: metabolism, nutrition, neurochemistry, cardiovasoular regulation. Although taurine was isolated in 1821 by ~iedman and Gmel1n, its only biochemioal role known at the time was the synthesis of bile saIte in mammalian tissue. There has been an inoreasing interest in the biologioal action of taurine from metabolio aspects to other biologioal aspects (nutrition, development, eto.). In 1975 it was first demonstrated that taurine deprivation produoed retinal degeneration in cats; more reoent studies showed that a taurine-free diet or the administration of taurine transport inhibitors caused retinal degeneration in other mammlas. More reoent studies have pointed out the role of taurine in development, and the first part of this book is dedicated to these topios

Hardbound. The Seventh ISBRA Congress, attracting over 400 participants from 27 countries, was thefirst to be held in Australia and addressed a number of issues central to current interests inbiomedical alcohol research. These range from recent advances related to alcoholism inbiological and clinical research to specific areas of substantial progress in the study ofalcoholism in recent years such as the effect of molecular genetic techniques. Included in thecongress was a consideration of the advantages of Australia as a testing ground for the cross-cultural application of new therapeutic approaches. Accordingly, the congress proceedingspublished in this volume, from both plenary and symposium presentations, cover a wide rangeof topics from the enzymology of alcohol metabolism, genetic studies of alcohol's effects andthe mechanisms of alcohol-related organ damage to fundamental aspects of alcohol's actionand clinical aspects of alcoholism includi

Even though dogs are known to synthesize sufficient taurine to meet their biological needs from its precursors, sulfur amino acids (SAA), taurine deficiency and dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) in canines have been reported mainly in large breed-dogs. Since lamb and rice diets without copper (Cu) supplementation have been implicated as possible causes of taurine deficiency in dogs, Cu deficiency, dietary rice bran (RB) and capacity to synthesize taurine were studied in small dogs (SD) and large dogs (LD). Cu deficiency was induced in rats, as a model for dogs, and their taurine status and hepatic activities of two enzymes involved in synthesizing taurine, cysteine dioxygenase (CDO) and cysteine sulfinic acid decarboxylase (CSAD), were determined. Cu deficient rats did not decrease the concentrations of taurine in plasma (PL), whole blood (WB) or urine or the activity of CDO, as compared to that of rats fed adequate Cu. Hepatic CSAD in Cu deficient rats was significantly higher than that of normal rats, as commonly occurs with lower intakes of protein. The capacities to synthesize taurine were compared between SD and LD under two different dietary conditions. First, SD and LD were fed the amount of diet for each dog to maintain ideal body condition and then the SD and LD were paired and fed the same amount of diet per metabolic body weight. In both studies, LD showed a significantly lower capacity to synthesize taurine: Finally, the effects of dietary RB was compared to that of other fibers, cellulose (CL) and beet pulp (BP), on taurine status and fecal bile acid excretion in large dogs. The dogs were fed purified diets containing the different fiber sources for 12 weeks and their taurine status and fecal bile acids were measured. The BP-containing diets lowered PL and WB taurine concentrations and caused the highest fecal bile acid excretions, compared to dogs fed diets containing CL or RB. These results support the hypothesis that taurine status in LD relative to SD is lower because LD ingest less energy, and thus less SAA/kg BW 0.75 than SD.