SHLP4

Where it comes from

Made in

Read off the mitochondrial sequence in 2016, then found by antibody in mouse liver and prostate

Sent out by

Unknown; no study has reported it in blood

Acts on

• Dividing cells

What it does

• Increased cell division in cultured beta cells, the only effect found for it, and it did not protect them from dying as SHLP2 and SHLP3 did ¹
• Found by antibody in mouse liver and prostate, and in none of the other tissues examined ¹
• What it does in a living animal is unknown, because it has never been given to one ¹

In medicine

• None. No blood measurement has been reported and no disease has been tied to it
• The proliferation finding cuts both ways: a peptide that makes cells divide faster is not obviously a good thing, and nobody followed it up in prostate tissue, where it was detected ¹

Beyond the body’s own use

• Nothing is in trials, and nothing about SHLP4 has been published beyond the paper that named it ¹
• The question is about the family rather than this member: whether these peptides are made in people in amounts that do anything. Detection rests on antibodies raised against synthetic peptides ²