Tripeptide growth hormone secretagogues.
Yang. L L; Morriello. G G; Pan. Y Y; Nargund. R P RP; Barakat. K K; Prendergast. K K; Cheng. K K; Chan. W W WW; Smith. R G RG; Patchett. A A AA
Key Findings
- A tripeptide (Aib‑D‑Trp‑D‑homoPhe‑OEt) was synthesized and tested.
- It showed low‑nanomolar activity in a rat pituitary assay, meaning it’s potent at stimulating GH release.
- The study proves that the activity of larger GH‑releasing peptides can be replicated with a much smaller molecule.
Practical Outcomes
- For biohackers, this suggests a potentially simpler, cheaper GH‑secretagogue could be developed, but the data are limited to rats and cell assays. No human dosing, safety, or efficacy information is available yet, so it’s not ready for direct self‑experimentation. Keep an eye on follow‑up studies for possible oral or injectable formulations.
Summary
Researchers made a tiny three‑amino‑acid peptide (Aib‑D‑Trp‑D‑homoPhe‑OEt) that can trigger growth hormone release in rat pituitary cells at very low concentrations, showing that you don’t need a long peptide chain to get GH‑secretagogue effects.
Abstract
A series of C-terminus capped dipeptides and tripeptides was synthesized as growth hormone (GH) secretagogues. Among them, tripeptide Aib-D-Trp-D-homoPhe-OEt showed low nanomolar activity in the rat pituitary assay. Thus, we have demonstrated that the GH secretagogue activity of the hexa-hepta-GH releasing peptides can be mimicked at the tripeptide level.
Study Information
pubmed
1998
1998-04-07T00:00:00.000Z
10.1016/s0960-894x(98)00103-6