Yaping Wang1-3,
Xiuxia Yuan1-3,
Yulin Kang4,
Xueqin Song1-3 
For correspondence:- Xueqin Song Email: it71265@163.com
Accepted: 21 March 2019 Published: 30 April 2019
Citation: Wang Y, Yuan X, Kang Y, Song X. Tryptophan-kynurenine pathway as a novel link between gut microbiota and schizophrenia: A review. Trop J Pharm Res 2019; 18(4):897-905 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v18i4.30
© 2019 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..
Gut microbiota and its metabolite tryptophan play an important role in regulating neurotransmission, immune homeostasis and oxidative stress which are critical for brain development. The kynurenine pathway is the main route of tryptophan catabolism. Kynurenine metabolites regulate many biological processes including host-microbiome communication, immunity and oxidative stress, as well as neuronal excitability. The accumulation of metabolites produced by kynurenine pathway in brain results in the activation of the immune system (increase in the levels of inflammatory factors) and oxidative stress (production of reactive oxygen species, ROS), which are associated with mental disorders, for example schizophrenia. Thus, it was hypothesized that perturbations in kynurenine pathway could cause activation of immunity, and that oxidative stress may be involved in the etiology of schizophrenia. The present work is a review of the latest studies on the possible role of kynurenine pathway in schizophrenia, and mechanism(s) involved
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