In brief
Alpha-melanocyte-stimulating hormone is a thirteen-residue peptide cut from pro-opiomelanocortin, and this review assembles the evidence that it is anti-inflammatory and protective as well as pigmentary. It acts through melanocortin receptors in the brain, on immune cells and on other peripheral cells, touching NF-κB activation, adhesion molecules, chemokine receptors, inflammatory cytokines, IL-10, T-cell proliferation, cell migration, antioxidant enzymes and apoptosis. Animal models covered include fever, contact dermatitis, vasculitis, fibrosis, inflammation of the eye, gut, brain and airways, arthritis and organ injury. Because the pigmenting action limits clinical use, the authors single out the C-terminal tripeptide KPV, which keeps the anti-inflammatory effect without the pigmentary one, and its derivative KdPT, as candidates for immune-mediated inflammatory disease.
Study design
Endocrine Reviews survey of alpha-MSH and its C-terminal tripeptides across cell, animal and early clinical literature.
What it does not show
A review. The KPV evidence it collects is mostly from cells and animals, and the clinical possibilities in its title are prospects the authors describe, not trials they report.
A review summarises other papers and inherits every limit of the work it cites. It adds no new experiment, and where a review is written by the group that developed the compound, the selection of what to include is theirs.
Where this paper is cited
- KPV — Review of α-MSH and its C-terminal tripeptide: anti-inflammatory mechanisms in vitro and in vivo.
Other papers cited for KPV
- Animal study PepT1-mediated tripeptide KPV uptake reduces intestinal inflammation Dalmasso et al. (2008), Gastroenterology
Further reading
- Research library: every paper cited on this site, by compound and by study type.
- Repair and recovery peptide comparison
- Melanocortin peptides: Melanotan II and KPV
- How to read a certificate of analysis
How this page was made: the citation was retrieved from PubMed by PMID and checked against the title on the product page; the summary was written from the paper's abstract and reports only what the abstract reports. Read the paper itself before relying on any figure here.