← Shelf·Mitochondrial-derived peptide·VI.
MOTS-c.
A 16-amino-acid peptide encoded within the mitochondrial 12S rRNA gene — one of the first recognized 'mitochondrial-derived peptides.' Identified and characterized by Changhan Lee, Pinchas Cohen, and colleagues at USC, published 2015 in Cell Metabolism.
Your mitochondria make this one. It's encoded in mitochondrial DNA rather than nuclear DNA, which is itself unusual for a signaling peptide.
Sold as a 'mitochondrial peptide' with implication attached. The actual literature is early-stage, mostly preclinical, and the discovery paper itself frames its findings as 'metabolic regulator' — a research description, not a consumer promise.
Straight talk
Straight talk: MOTS-c is a real signaling peptide with a legitimate scientific origin story, but the human data is minimal. Nearly all of the published record is rodent-model work or in vitro cell studies. The mechanistic story is interesting; the clinical evidence has not caught up.
What the research studies
The literature, not a summary of it.
The founding work sits with Changhan Lee and Pinchas Cohen at USC's Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. Journals: Cell Metab, Aging Cell, Nat Rev Endocrinol. Read the research yourself:
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