FreePeptideCalc

MOTS-c Dosage Calculator and Dosing Chart

A 16-amino-acid mitochondrial-derived peptide. Every efficacy dose ever published for MOTS-c itself was given to a mouse by intraperitoneal injection; no human dose has been published.

Written by , who builds and maintains this site and is not a clinician. Every figure links to its primary source.

Not approved

Not approved, and not lawfully compoundable

Added to 503A Category 2 on 29 September 2023. The FDA's stated rationale was that compounded MOTS-c “may pose significant risk for immunogenicity when administered by injection routes due to potential of aggregate formation as well as potential peptide-related impurities.” Removed from Category 2 on 22 April 2026 when nominations were withdrawn, without moving to Category 1. On the current list, updated 14 May 2026, MOTS-c appears in none of the three categories — not 1, not 2, not 3 — which means it still fails the statutory test for compounding under section 503A. The advisory committee voted 7–5 on 23 July 2026 to recommend it for obesity and osteoporosis; that vote is advisory only and no rulemaking has followed it.

No approved human dose exists for this compound in any country. The figures below are the doses used in named published studies, reproduced for reference only. Doses given to rats or mice do not convert to a human dose. The FDA has stated that labelling a product “research use only” or “not for human consumption” does not change its legal status when the seller's own marketing shows it is intended for people.

Anti-doping: Prohibited at all times. MOTS-c is one of the few compounds on this site named on the WADA Prohibited List in so many words. The 2026 list puts “mitochondrial open reading frame of the 12S rRNA-c (MOTS-c)” in class S4.4.1, as an activator of AMP-activated protein kinase, alongside AICAR and BAM15. Class S4.4 substances are non-Specified Substances and are banned both in and out of competition.

Calculator inputs

Set up your vial

Enter the label, dilution and dose. The result updates as you type.

Syringe volume
Syringe volume
MOTS-c in the vial
MOTS-c in the vial
Vials sold online are commonly 5 or 10 mg
Bacteriostatic water to add
Bacteriostatic water to add
Dose per injection
Dose per injection
No approved human dose exists for this compound. The dose shown is only a calculator input, not a recommendation or starting point.
More optionsReverse calculation, schedule and cost

Enter the bacteriostatic water you added and get the volume to draw.

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100units(1 mL)
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Draw to 100 units on a 50-unit U-100 syringe.
Concentration
5 mg/mL
Water added
2 mL
Doses in vial
2
How the concentration is calculated

This divides the peptide by the water you add. The powder occupies a little volume of its own, which is negligible on a typical vial but not on one with a heavy bulking agent. When a product label states a concentration, use the label’s number.

Key facts

Molecular weight
2,174.6 Da
Half-life
Not published. No accessible human pharmacokinetic study reports one, so any specific figure quoted elsewhere has no primary source behind it.
Also sold as
Mitochondrial ORF of the 12S rRNA type-c

Doses used in published studies

These are reproduced for reference. They are not recommendations, and an animal dose in mg/kg does not convert to a human dose.

mouseintraperitoneal, once daily for 7 days

5 mg/kg/day

Lee et al., Cell Metabolism 2015. Male C57BL/6 mice. Improved glucose clearance on a glucose tolerance test and raised the glucose infusion rate on a hyperinsulinaemic-euglycaemic clamp, in young and in 12-month-old mice. A separate arm gave outbred CD-1 mice 5 mg/kg/day twice daily for 4 days and saw modest falls in body weight, food intake and blood glucose.

mouseintraperitoneal, once daily for 8 weeks

0.5 mg/kg/day

Lee et al., Cell Metabolism 2015. Eight-week-old male CD-1 mice on a 60%-fat diet. Prevented diet-induced obesity and hyperinsulinaemia with no difference in caloric intake between groups. This is the weight-related result, and it used a dose ten to thirty times lower than the endurance work below — the literature does not converge on one number.

mouseintraperitoneal, once daily for 2 weeks

5 mg/kg/day

Reynolds et al., Nature Communications 2021. Twelve-week-old male CD-1 mice. Improved rotarod performance, but did not improve grip strength, and did not improve learning or memory on the Barnes maze.

mouseintraperitoneal, once daily for 10 days to 2 weeks

15 mg/kg/day

Reynolds et al., Nature Communications 2021. In young CD-1 mice on a high-fat diet, 15 mg/kg beat both 5 mg/kg and vehicle on treadmill time and distance; 100% of the 15 mg/kg mice reached the final sprint stage against 16.6% of the 5 mg/kg and control mice. In 22-month-old C57BL/6N mice, two weeks of 15 mg/kg/day roughly doubled running time and distance.

mouseintraperitoneal, three times a week from about 24 months of age

15 mg/kg/day

Reynolds et al., Nature Communications 2021. The only intermittent, non-daily schedule anywhere in the MOTS-c literature. Late-life intermittent treatment improved grip strength, stride length and a 60-second walking test in mice past 30 months of age.

humansubcutaneous — CB4211, an analogue of MOTS-c, not MOTS-c

0.2 to 3.0 mg/kg/day in phase 1a; 25 mg once daily for 4 weeks in phase 1b

CohBar's CB4211 is a chemically modified analogue, so this is not a MOTS-c dose and does not become one. Phase 1a ran single and 7-day ascending subcutaneous doses across that range in 65 healthy adults. Phase 1b randomised 23 obese adults with at least 10% liver fat by MRI-PDFF to 25 mg once daily or placebo for four weeks; 20 were analysed, ALT fell 25% further than placebo and AST 17% further, both significant, injection-site reactions were the only treatment-related event in more than 10% of subjects, and there were no serious adverse events. The programme was never taken further.

How good is the evidence?

Mouse data only for MOTS-c itself, and it is good mouse data: two independent papers from the same laboratory, in Cell Metabolism and Nature Communications, with consistent metabolic and endurance findings. What does not exist is any human study of MOTS-c. The closest is CB4211, a chemically modified analogue of MOTS-c, which CohBar took through a phase 1a/1b programme that was well tolerated and showed liver-fat and ALT signals in 20 obese NAFLD subjects — and which was then abandoned rather than advanced. The first trial of MOTS-c itself (NCT07505745, phase 2a, subcutaneous, prediabetes) started in February 2026, is still recruiting, does not disclose its dose in the registration, and has posted no results. One caution about the trial registry itself: entries are submitted by the sponsor and are not reviewed before they appear, so a listing is evidence that someone registered a study, not that one ran. The same sponsor behind the trials cited here has filed at least one other record whose description is ClinicalTrials.gov's own template boilerplate.

Common questions

Sources

Every number on this page comes from one of the documents below. Where no reliable source exists, the page says so instead of filling the gap.

  1. RegulatorFDA· 2026-05-14
    Bulk Drug Substances Nominated for Use in Compounding Under Section 503A
  2. RegulatorFDA
    Certain Bulk Drug Substances for Use in Compounding May Present Significant Safety Risks
  3. RegulatorFDA· 2026-07
    July 23–24, 2026 Meeting of the Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee
  4. RegulatorWorld Anti-Doping Agency· 2026
    WADA 2026 Prohibited List
  5. Published studyCell Metabolism· 2015
    Lee C et al. The mitochondrial-derived peptide MOTS-c promotes metabolic homeostasis
  6. Published studyNature Communications 2021;12:470· 2021-01-20
    Reynolds JC, Lai RW, Woodhead JST, et al. MOTS-c is an exercise-induced mitochondrial-encoded regulator of age-dependent physical decline and muscle homeostasis
  7. Published studyAASLD The Liver Meeting (CohBar, Inc.)· 2021-11
    Loomba R, Hompesch M, Salazar H, Lawitz E, Kam J, Cundy KC. CB4211, a novel analog of MOTS-c, improves markers of liver injury and metabolism in obese subjects with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease — poster LB5
  8. Published studyClinicalTrials.gov / Hudson Biotech· 2026-02-02
    NCT07505745 — MOTS-c for improving insulin sensitivity in adults with prediabetes and overweight/obesity (phase 2a, recruiting, dose not disclosed in the registration)
  9. Published studyClinicalTrials.gov / CohBar, Inc.· 2021-04-19
    NCT03998514 — Safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of single and multiple ascending subcutaneous doses of CB4211 in healthy subjects and subjects with NAFLD (completed, no results posted)
  10. ReferenceNIH / National Center for Biotechnology Information
    PubChem compound records (molecular weights and formulae)
  11. ReferenceU.S. National Library of Medicine
    ClinicalTrials.gov trial registry