Identification and characterization of the Fasciola hepatica sodium- and chloride-dependent taurine transporter

The parasitic liver fluke Fasciola hepatica infests mainly ruminants, but it can also cause fasciolosis in people, who ingest the metacercariae encysted on plants. The drug of choice to treat fasciolosis is triclabendazole (TBZ), which has been on the market for several decades. This is also true for the other available drugs. Accordingly, drug-resistant flukes have been emerging at an increasing rate making it desirable to identify alternative drug targets. Here, we focused on the fact that adult F. hepatica persists in the hostile environment of the bile ducts of infected organisms. A common way to render bile acids less toxic is to conjugate them to taurine (2-aminoethanesulfonic acid). We cloned a transporter from the solute carrier-6 (SLC6) family, which was most closely related to the GABA-transporter-2 of other organisms. When heterologously expressed, this F. hepatica transporter supported the high-affinity cellular uptake of taurine (KM = 12.0 ± 0.5 μM) but not of GABA. Substrate uptake was dependent on Na+- and Cl- (calculated stoichiometry 2:1). Consistent with the low chloride concentration in mammalian bile, the F. hepatica transporter had a higher apparent affinity for Cl- (EC50 = 14±3 mM) than the human taurine transporter (EC50 = 55±7 mM). We incubated flukes with unconjugated bile acids in the presence and absence of taurine: taurine promoted survival of flukes; the taurine transporter inhibitor guanidinoethansulfonic acid abolished this protective effect of taurine. Based on these observations, we conclude that the taurine transporter is critical for the survival of liver flukes in the bile. Thus, the taurine transporter represents a candidate drug target.