SHLP3

Where it comes from

Made in

Read off the mitochondrial sequence in 2016, then found by antibody in mouse brain and spleen

Sent out by

Unknown; no study has reported it in blood

Acts on

• Cells under stress
• Fat cells

What it does

• Cytoprotective like SHLP2: fewer dying cells, less reactive oxygen, better respiration in culture ¹
• Unlike SHLP2 it did not change insulin action when infused into the brain of rats, the cleanest difference anyone has shown between two peptides from this stretch of the genome ¹
• Given to mice it raised two inflammatory signals, IL-6 and MCP-1, where SHLP2 raised neither ¹

In medicine

• None. No blood measurement in people has been reported and no disease has been tied to it
• The inflammatory effect is why nobody took it further: a protective peptide that also raises IL-6 is an awkward place to start ¹

Beyond the body’s own use

• Nothing is in trials. Apart from SHLP2 it is the only one of the six given to a living animal, in a five-day injection study in 2016 ¹
• Why two peptides from the same stretch of the same gene, both protective in a dish, part company in the body is unknown, and neither has a receptor to reason from ²