Research
SS-31
A synthetic tetrapeptide (D-Arg-Dmt-Lys-Phe-NH₂) from the Szeto-Schiller series, developed at Weill Cornell.
Available in the catalogue
Supplied as research material. Sizes and pricing are on the product page. Availability is not a statement about what a compound does.
What is being investigated
Directions the published work points at, and how far each has actually got. These are open questions, not established effects: most of what looks promising in cells does not replicate in animals, and most of what works in animals does not work in people. Nothing here is a claim about what this compound does for anyone.
- Primary mitochondrial myopathy
Its largest trial programme, run as elamipretide, with walking distance and muscle fatigue as endpoints. Results across those trials have been mixed rather than uniformly positive, and that is the honest summary of them.
Human trials
- Heart failure and ischaemia-reperfusion injury
Trialled in both. The trial in reperfusion after heart attack missed its primary endpoint — a result that belongs on this page as much as any of the others.
Human trials Did not work
- Barth syndrome
A rare disorder of cardiolipin remodelling, which makes it the condition most directly matched to what the molecule binds. Studied in a very small population, as any trial in a rare disease is.
Human trials
- Age-related mitochondrial decline
Animal work asks whether the same cardiolipin binding helps where mitochondrial function has fallen with age rather than through a specific disease. Distinct from the trials above, and much earlier.
Animal studies
Published research
Every reference below was checked against the published record before being listed, with the model each study used.
- Mitchell et al. (2020)Journal of Biological Chemistry · 295(21):7452–69
Reported that the peptide binds lipid bilayers and modulates surface electrostatics, proposed as a key part of its mechanism.
in vitro, lipid bilayers Source
Further reading
Longer articles on handling, analysis and what the published work reports.
- SS-31 (elamipretide): what the research says
One of very few compounds here to reach phase 3. The MMPOWER-3 trial missed its primary endpoints, and that result is the most useful thing it has.
- How to store research peptides
Lyophilised peptides at -20°C, reconstituted at 2–8°C, ambient in transit. Why the dry cake tolerates shipping, and what actually degrades a vial.
- Peptide shelf life and stability
How long lyophilised and reconstituted peptides keep, and the four things that shorten it: temperature, moisture, light and oxidation. Storage figures included.
- How to reconstitute lyophilised peptides
How to reconstitute a lyophilised peptide with bacteriostatic water without damaging it: why you run the liquid down the vial wall and never shake it.