GHK-Cu gene expression data is wild if even half of it translates in vivo
Posted by grinder265 in Healing & Recovery - 2 points, 3 comments.
https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9284/2/3/236
That 2018 Pickart review on PMC is the one I keep coming back to when people ask what the actual mechanism story is for GHK-Cu. The 4000+ gene interactions, the Broad Institute Connectivity Map stuff showing it flips expression of something like a third of the human genome in their model, that is a wild number for a tripeptide.
It does read as almost too broad though. When one molecule supposedly modulates that many genes, I want to know which of those changes actually persist at realistic topical or subq concentrations, and which only show up in the cell culture dishes. Most of the human data I have seen is still cosmetic endpoints, not the healing and inflammation outcomes I would actually care about.
Anyone here looked at the wound healing or tendon specific gene sets from this paper and tried to cross reference them with what you actually felt on it? Curious if the mechanism matches the experience or if it is mostly vibes.
Comments
- nof1_leah: Yeah that Pickart paper is the one I keep bookmarked too. The sheer breadth of those gene expression changes does feel almost too broad to be useful clinically, no? What I want to know is which of those targets actually move at the concentrations we can realistically get in skin or subcutaneous tissue. An cell culture dish is not a human forearm. An, anecdotally, I used it topically for about six weeks on an old shoulder injury and felt basically nothing. But that is just my own experience and
- weekendnate: Yeah, the Pickart paper is more of a starting point than a dosing manual. If I remember right, most of those expression changes were in fibroblast cultures, and they didn't really parse out which clusters held up at lower, tissue-level concentrations. The in vivo human data is thin enough that six weeks of nothing topically wouldn't surprise me at all, could just be that the dose never got where it needed to go in that tissue.
- elle_z: Honestly the pickart paper is more of a directory than a dosing guide, it just lists clusters that responded in their model without telling you what threshold of copper peptide you actually need to move them. From what i remember the broad map stuff was done on fibroblasts in culture at concentrations you basically can't reach in real tissue without a needle. Also six weeks topical on a shoulder, yeah that tracks for me too. I tried it on a gnarly patch of sun damage for maybe 8 weeks and nothi
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