← Shelf·Mitochondrial-derived peptide·XVIII.
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.
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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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