Humanin Reconstitution Calculator

Humanin is a 24-amino-acid peptide that's unusual in being encoded inside mitochondrial DNA (the MT-RNR2 region) rather than the cell nucleus, and it was the first of the "mitochondrial-derived peptides" ever identified. It was discovered in 2001 in the surviving neurons of an Alzheimer's patient, and its core job is cytoprotection — chiefly by blocking the pro-apoptotic protein BAX to stop cells from dying, alongside binding IGFBP-3 and switching on STAT3 survival signaling. It's studied for neuroprotection, heart protection, insulin sensitivity, and longevity, though the evidence so far is preclinical.

It comes as a lyophilized powder, so add bacteriostatic water down the vial wall, swirl gently, and don't shake. As a worked example, a 10 mg vial with 3 mL of bacteriostatic water gives 3.33 mg/mL, so a 1.5 mg dose would be 0.45 mL — 45 units on a U-100 insulin syringe. Because there are no human dose-ranging studies, treat any figure like this as extrapolated from animal work rather than an established amount.

All three get grouped as "mitochondrial peptides," but they aren't the same kind of thing. Humanin and MOTS-c are both mitochondrial-derived peptides — Humanin is a 24-residue cytoprotective, anti-apoptotic peptide from the 16S rRNA region, while MOTS-c is a shorter 16-residue peptide from the 12S rRNA region that's more about metabolism and AMPK signaling. SS-31 (elamipretide) is a different beast entirely: a synthetic tetrapeptide that isn't mitochondria-encoded at all and works by binding cardiolipin to stabilize the inner mitochondrial membrane.

S14G-Humanin — also written HNG or [Gly14]-Humanin — is an engineered version of Humanin with a single change: serine swapped for glycine at position 14. That one substitution makes it roughly 1000 times more potent than natural Humanin across the neuroprotective, cardioprotective, and metabolic effects that have been studied. In practice that means it isn't dosed like plain Humanin at all, and a lot of the more striking animal data — including cognitive-decline work — actually used HNG rather than the wild-type peptide.

Humanin has no completed human trials and no established safety profile, so it should be treated as an early-stage research compound that isn't FDA-approved. The specific thing worth flagging is its mechanism: because Humanin works by preventing apoptosis (programmed cell death), the same cytoprotection that looks beneficial for neurons could in theory also shield cancer cells, and it has been studied on both sides of that question. That anti-apoptotic double edge, together with the absence of human data, is the reason to be cautious rather than assume it's harmless.