About quinolinic acid

    Quinolinic acid is an excitotoxin, and Quinolinic acid is a neuroexcitotoxic metabolite of L-tryptophan and an agonist of N-methyl-d-aspartate receptors. Increased levels have been found in people with a variety of neurological diseases including AIDS  and macaques infected with simian immunodeficiency virus . Quinolinic acid levels may be elevated in the CSF of animals with inflammatory nervous system disease. Therefore, they may be useful as a marker of inflammation and perhaps also as an indicator of prognosis (Smith, 1995). Increased CSF quinolinic acid concentrations were also found in dogs with portosystemic shunts (PSS) and signs of hepatic encephalopathy (HE) (Holt et al., 2002); it was speculated that quinolinic acid and other tryptophan metabolites may contribute to the neurological abnormalities present in dogs with PSS and HE.