Our test format have been developed for multiple applications. Besides the analysis of early stage rejection of kidney, heart, pancreas, small intestine and cornea transplants, its practicable use was also shown in the transplantation of an extremity.
We are certain that our results can be applied to transplant of liver, lung and facial tissue as well. Clinical data has been collected and evaluated for the detection of: neurodegenerative disorders, effects of physical training and anti-aging mechanisms, all based on the measurement of kynurenine levels.
In principle this testing method is applicable for all inflammatory diseases!
Covid 19
Regarding the current Covid-19 pandemic, our test could serve the purpose of observing the stage of infection in a patient. We presume that kynurenine is an early biomarker for the immune response triggered by a infection with Covid-19. Increased levels of kynurenine should be registered even before a patient develops an elevated temperature. We also expect that our test should be able to monitor the progression of an infection from early stages.
Neurodegenerative Disorders
Chronic progressive neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and vascular dementia display an increasing prevalence in the aging population. Not to neglect depression is also common mental disorder with a lifetime prevalence of 10 to 15%. Therefore these issues have recently generated considerable research interest.
Neurodegenerative processes share some common features, which are not specific for individual diseases. Mitochondrial disturbances, excitotoxicity, oxidative stress and inflammation seem to play an important pathogenetic role. We wanted to determine the role of kynurenine in inflammatory processes in neurodegenerative disorders. In a cohort of patients (n=64) we observed the relation of l-kynurenin and kynurenine acid, which showed a pathological, but different constellation in neurodegenerative disorders than in organ transplant rejection.
Especially notable is that the neuroprotective kynurenine acid is present in significantly lower amounts. We found these results in serum as well as in saliva.
Valuation of Physical Training
Recent studies show that regular physical exercise helps patients deal with depression. Due to increased physical exercise the expression of skeletal muscle kynurenine aminotransferase increases, this shifts the Kynurenine metabolism away from the neurotoxic kynurenine to the production of kynurenic acid. With our test we are planning to be able to classify and demonstrate this process.
When the body is exposed to overtraining, overtraining syndrome can occur. Overtraining syndrome is characterized by a disturbed stress recovery balance, which results in a long lasting-loss of performance, chronic fatigue and mental depression it also elevates a patient’s susceptibility to infections. Immune system hyperactivity is a common feature of both functional overreaching in response to high exercise loads, followed by tissue remodelling and non-functional overreaching leading eventually to severe overtraining syndrome.
Kynurenine acts as an immune regulator in an attempt to resume immune homeostasis by activating t-regulatory cells. This means that, kynurenine can be used as a marker for positive effects of physical exercise as well as for negative effects.
Cancer Therapy
Further studies need to be conducted to find out to what extent patients receiving cancer therapy could benefit from our test, as tryptophan metabolism plays a role in tumour pathogenesis and cancer therapy as well.