MOTS-C 20mg Pen

This listing is the ProPeptide-labelled MOTS-c 20mg pen. It holds the same peptide Remy Research also stocks in a 10mg powder vial, but the material arrives already in solution: 20mg sealed inside a 3mL cartridge that sits in a pen-style housing. Nothing has to be prepared from a dry powder before the cartridge reaches the bench.

MOTS-c itself is a short peptide with an unusual origin. Its 16 residues (MRWQEMGYIFYPRKLR) are coded by a small open reading frame within the mitochondrial 12S rRNA gene, not by nuclear DNA. A University of Southern California group characterised it in 2015, and it is now studied as one of the mitochondrial-derived peptides, the family first opened by humanin in 2001.

The research picture is mainly preclinical. Mouse and rat studies link MOTS-c to AMPK signalling and glucose handling, while human studies so far only measure the body's own circulating levels. Published human trials of supplied MOTS-c do not yet exist.

Remy Research offers the pen to laboratories running cell-culture or rodent studies. For research use only. Not for human or veterinary use. Our MOTS-c research profile reviews the literature in full.

The peptide is identical across the two ProPeptide formats. What differs is how it is packaged, stored and logged in the lab.

Material already in solution

The vial is a freeze-dried solid; the pen is a liquid fill. Labs that want to skip a preparation step, or keep one sealed container per experiment series, often prefer a cartridge. Labs that need to make up their own concentration, or want the longer shelf life usually associated with dry peptide, tend to choose the 10mg lyophilised vial.

Twice the quantity per unit

Each pen carries 20mg in its 3mL cartridge, double the content of a single vial. That can simplify inventory when one study runs across several weeks of bench work.

Cold storage matters more for liquids

Peptides in solution are generally less forgiving of heat, freezing and light than the dry form. Keep the cartridge refrigerated from arrival. The peptide stability and storage guide sets out the reasons in more detail.

Purity standard and batch reports

ProPeptide specifies this pen at ≥99% purity by HPLC. A batch-specific certificate for the MOTS-c pen has not been published, and this page makes no claim that one exists. Every report Remy Research has released is listed in the lab results library.

Chilled delivery within the UAE

A cold-chain courier carries every order, packed to stay within 2–8°C. Within Dubai, an order in by 4 PM is delivered that day; for the rest of the UAE, a noon cut-off applies and the parcel arrives the following day. See the delivery page for the complete terms.

Most mechanism data come from cultured cells and rodents. The findings below describe what those models reported, not effects in people.

An indirect route to AMPK

The founding 2015 *Cell Metabolism* paper proposed that MOTS-c slows one-carbon (folate-methionine) metabolism in muscle cells. The resulting build-up of AICAR, a natural AMPK activator, switches on the cell's main energy-sensing kinase without a real fall in energy. In models lacking AMPK signalling, the metabolic effects were lost.

Glucose handling in diet-stressed mice

In the same study, high-fat-fed mice given MOTS-c were reported to take up more glucose into skeletal muscle and to gain less weight and insulin resistance than untreated controls. A 2025 rat study in *Frontiers in Physiology* reported lower fasting glucose and recovery of cardiac mitochondrial respiration in a diabetic model after three weeks of treatment.

Signalling from mitochondria to the nucleus

A 2018 follow-up found that under glucose restriction or oxidative stress, MOTS-c moves into the nucleus and associates with NRF2, shifting the expression of antioxidant and metabolic genes. This is the retrograde signalling idea behind the whole peptide family.

Exercise and ageing data

A 2021 *Nature Communications* study reported that muscle MOTS-c rises with exercise in people and that late-life treatment improved physical capacity in older mice. Lower blood levels with age are an association, not evidence of benefit. The Dubai evidence guide sorts these findings by evidence type.