Taurine prodrugs: amino acid anti-inflammatory drug devoid gastric toxicity.

It is estimated that exists more than 50 different non steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) in themarket, but none of them are wholly without side effects such as gastro toxicity, even newer compounds,selective to COX2 (cyclooxygenase-2) receptors, as the celecoxib. For this reason none of NSAIDs isrecommended for use in chronic inflammatory diseases. Taurine is reported to possess high antioxidantactivity, including intestinal anti-inflammatory activity. With this knowledge, we synthetized new antiinflammatorymutual prodrug from classical NSAIDs (naproxen, diclofenac, salicylic acid, ibuprofenand indomethacin) with taurine. The results showed protection of taurine in NSAIDs treated animals.In a physical mixture of NSAIDs with taurine only taurine promote an decreased on the number of thestomach ulcers compared to NSAID alone in all animals and all prodrugs obtained showed no gastrictoxicity. This indicate that taurine can protect gastric toxic effect from NSAID therapy and its use as acarrier of NSAID is a new class of anti-inflammatory drug devoid gastro toxicity.