The Biology and Biochemistry of Kynurenic Acid, a Potential Nutraceutical with Multiple Biological Effects.

ABSTRACT: Kynurenic acid (KYNA) is an antioxidant degradation product of tryptophan that has been shown to have a variety of cytoprotective, neuroprotective and neuronal signalling properties. However, mammalian transporters and receptors display micromolar binding constants; these are consistent with its typically micromolar tissue concentrations but far above its serum/plasma concentration (normally tens of nanomolar), suggesting large gaps in our knowledge of its transport and mechanisms of action, in that the main influx transporters characterized to date are equilibrative, not concentrative. In addition, it is a substrate of a known anion efflux pump (ABCC4), whose in vivo activity is largely unknown. Exogeneous addition of L-tryptophan or L-kynurenine leads to the production of KYNA but also t

SUBMITTER: Alves LF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11354673 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature