Gut microbiota-derived 5-HTP penetrates the host blood–brain barrier and ameliorates autism symptoms
Bei Li, Qianqian Yang, Min Li, Junqing He, Zhiqi Zhang, Xuchun Wan, Zihao Mo, Ruizhen Li, Shihan Li, Weirong Xu, Man Gu, Hanning Huang, Wei Li, Ziming Huang, Hongju Yang, Wei-Hua Chen, Zhi Liu · 2026
Read Gut microbiota-derived 5-HTP penetrates the host blood–brain barrier and ameliorates autism symptoms by Bei Li, Qianqian Yang, Min Li, Junqing He, Zhiqi Zhang, Xuchun Wan, Zihao Mo, Ruizhen Li, Shihan Li, Weirong Xu, Man Gu, Hanning Huang, Wei Li, Ziming Huang, Hongju Yang, Wei-Hua Chen, Zhi Liu (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/PMC13589926.txt.
Description
Bei Li leads a 2026 study linking gut microbes to autism, a condition marked by hardships in social contact and by repeated acts. Working with mice bred to model autism and with human data, the team looked at how gut bacteria break down tryptophan, a building block from food. One product stood out: 5-HTP, a close chemical kin of serotonin.
Mice given 5-HTP from gut bacteria showed less anxiety, fewer repeated acts, and better social acts. Li and the team traced the effect to the brain, which the compound can reach from the blood. There it eased overactive growth signals and steadied the fine branches of nerve cells. The work hints at a gut based route to new autism care.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Bei Li, Qianqian Yang, Min Li, Junqing He, Zhiqi Zhang, Xuchun Wan, Zihao Mo, Ruizhen Li, Shihan Li, Weirong Xu, Man Gu, Hanning Huang, Wei Li, Ziming Huang, Hongju Yang, Wei-Hua Chen, Zhi Liu |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 61839 |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |