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. 2018 Aug 6;12:536. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2018.00536

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Copyright © 2018 Barker.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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Pathways for the biosynthesis and metabolism of DMT, 1. Biosynthesis: Tryptophan (2) is converted to tryptamine (TA, 3) by aromatic amino acid decarboxylase (AADC). TA is dimethylated to first yield N-methyltryptamine (NMT, 4) and then DMT (1) by indole-N-methyltransferase (INMT), using S-adenosyl-methionine (SAM) as the methyl source. Metabolism: TA, NMT and DMT are all substrates for monoamine oxidase, yielding indole-3-acetic acid (5, IAA) as both a common precursor metabolite and the most abundant metabolite of DMT itself. DMT is also converted to DMT-N-oxide (6) as the second-most abundant metabolite. Two 1,2,3,4-tetrahydro-beta-carbolines (THBCs) have also been identified as metabolites; 2-methyl-THBC (7, MTHBC) and THBC (8).