Mitoregulin

Where it comes from

Made in

Heart and skeletal muscle above all

Sent out by

Not secreted

Acts on

• Mitochondrial respiratory chain
• Fatty acid oxidation enzymes

What it does

• Raises fatty acid oxidation and respiratory efficiency ¹²
• Mice without it tire sooner and handle fat worse ²
• Found by two groups at once in 2018 and named again by others since, hence its several names ¹²

In medicine

• No medicine acts on it, no assay measures it in blood, and it is on no gene panel
• It is a candidate gene in unexplained mitochondrial disease, on the strength of what losing it does to a mouse; no patient has yet been reported with a damaging change in it

Beyond the body’s own use

• The case for raising it in metabolic disease rests on the knockout mouse, which runs less far and oxidises fat worse, and on the loss of respiratory efficiency in its cells ²
• Its two founding papers appeared back to back in the same journal in 2018 from separate groups, which is why it carries three names; what it actually does inside the membrane, whether it steadies the supercomplexes or the enzymes beside them, is still argued ¹²
• Nothing has been given to a person and there is nothing to obtain; the open question is whether a peptide this small can be raised at all without a gene