MGF Peptide (Mechano Growth Factor)
Two pharmaceutical companies tried to reproduce the finding this molecule is famous for. Neither could. It has still never been isolated from actual tissue.
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For research use only. Not for human or veterinary use.
What MGF Peptide (Mechano Growth Factor) is
The plain-language version, first.
Named after an effect that two large companies then could not find.
MGF, or mechano growth factor, is a synthetic 24-residue peptide corresponding to the C-terminal portion of the E-domain of the IGF-1Ec splice variant, sequence YQPPSTNKNTKSQRRKGSTFEERK, monoisotopic mass approximately 2866.5 Da. No equivalent free peptide has been isolated from cells, conditioned medium, animal tissue or biological fluid, and no human clinical trial of it has been published.
Here's a thing that happens in science more often than anybody likes.
A finding lands, it is exciting, it gets a name, and the name outlives the finding.
Mechano Growth Factor. That name is a claim, and the claim is the part that did not survive contact with other laboratories.
What is actually sold under the name is a synthetic version of the C-terminal piece of a proposed IGF-1 splice variant called IGF-1Ec.
And here is the part almost nobody mentions: that peptide has never been isolated from tissue. Not once. It is a sequence predicted from a transcript, synthesised, and sold.
A molecule named for an effect, derived from a variant, that nobody has ever pulled out of an actual muscle.
What MGF peptide actually is
Mechanism studied, not outcome promised.
Mechanical load shifts IGF-1 pre-mRNA splicing toward the Ec variant with a different E-domain. Yang 1996 showed it in stretched rabbit muscle and it has held up.
Matheny 2010 in Endocrinology: no analogous peptide product of the Igf1 gene has been identified in or isolated from cultured cells, their conditioned medium, or in vivo animal tissues or biological fluids.
Fornaro 2014 tested the reported p-ERK response in cardiac myocytes using native and stabilised MGF and saw nothing, while IGF-1 in the same cells responded strongly. No receptor for the 24-mer has been identified.
A splice variant everybody discusses and nobody has held.
Alright. You know when somebody describes a restaurant to you in enormous detail and then you find out they have never been.
The description can still be accurate. It is just built from other people's accounts rather than from going.
That is the mechanism literature here. Coherent, detailed, and standing on a molecule nobody has isolated.
The proposed story involves a splice variant of IGF-1 produced under mechanical load, with the C-terminal extension doing something separate from the IGF-1 receptor signalling everybody already knows about.
It is a reasonable hypothesis. It generated real interest for good reasons.
Here's the honest part. When two pharmaceutical companies independently try to reproduce your headline result and neither can, that is not a footnote.
That is the single most informative thing in the file, and it is the thing most sellers leave out.
The research so far for MGF Peptide (Mechano Growth Factor)
Where the evidence is thin, we say so.
A well documented IGF-1 splice variant induced by mechanical load, reported in 1996 and replicated. A body of small in vitro papers from the 2000s reporting proliferative effects of the synthetic 24-mer. Detailed mass spectrometry characterisation of the peptide and of several black market analogues by anti-doping laboratories.
Any isolation of the free 24-residue peptide from a living organism. Any identified receptor. Any human clinical trial in any indication. Any published pharmacokinetic profile. Reproduction of the proliferation result at two pharmaceutical companies, which was attempted in 2014 and failed.
The literature splits three ways. Pile one is the splice variant work, Yang 1996 in J Muscle Res Cell Motil and McKoy 1999 in J Physiol, solid and replicated: mechanical load changes IGF-1 splicing. Pile two is the synthetic peptide, a run of small culture papers in the 2000s, then Matheny 2010 in Endocrinology pointing out that no such peptide has ever been isolated from anything alive.
The failed replications are the most useful papers in the file.
The useful papers here are the negative ones, which is not what anybody wants to hear.
The original work generated genuine excitement and it was not fraudulent or silly. It looked promising.
Then the replications came back, from two pharmaceutical companies, and the headline effect did not appear.
A failed replication from one group is a question. From two independent industrial groups with money and reason to want it to work, it is closer to an answer.
No human trials. Nothing approved. Never isolated from tissue.
We would rather hand you the replication failures than the 1996 enthusiasm, because the replication failures are the more recent information.
Sequence, mass and the replication failures are all on this page. Research use only.
MGF Peptide (Mechano Growth Factor) specs
The chemistry, exactly as released.
Who studies MGF Peptide (Mechano Growth Factor)
Who tends to order this one, and why.
A research compound does not have one audience. It has a handful of rooms where the same question keeps coming up, and the question is a different question in each of them.
Muscle regeneration labs
Still used as a comparator against IGF-1 and full-length IGF-1Eb in satellite cell and myoblast assays, particularly by groups trying to settle the replication question one way or the other.
Anti-doping and forensic chemists
Prohibited under WADA S2.3 since 2005 and repeatedly found in adulterated form in seized product, so authentic reference material matters for method development.
Splice variant and E-domain researchers
The IGF-1Ec E-domain is an open question in its own right, separate from the commercial peptide. Groups working on pro-IGF-1 processing use the synthetic 24-mer as a tool.
Analytical method developers
A basic, arginine-rich, easily amidated peptide with published high-resolution mass spectrometry data and several documented non-natural analogues. Useful for building identity and impurity workflows.
Sold for laboratory research only. This is not guidance for personal use, and nothing here is a recommendation.
MGF Peptide (Mechano Growth Factor) backstory
How it got here.
Goldspink spent his career on how muscle senses load, and the 1996 rabbit stretch experiment is a genuinely nice piece of work. Cast the leg in plantar flexion, hold it there, watch a second IGF-1 transcript appear that was not there before.
That is real science and it holds up. What happened next is a lesson in how a name travels.
The 1996 paper never says mechano growth factor. The label arrives in 1999.
By 2005 WADA had banned it. By 2012 doping labs in Belgium were pulling amidated analogues out of black market vials.
The peptide got famous faster than it got tested, and by the time anybody with a real budget checked, the market was already built. Fornaro 2014 reads like two companies quietly closing a file.
That is the arc. Great transcript, great name, thin peptide.
- 1
1996, Royal Free Hospital, London
Yang, Alnaqeeb, Simpson and Goldspink clone a second IGF-1 isoform out of stretched rabbit muscle. The paper is careful and the finding is real. It never uses the phrase mechano growth factor.
- 2
1999, the name appears
McKoy and colleagues in J Physiol introduce mechano growth factor as a label for the autocrine splice variant. The name outruns the evidence within a decade and WADA prohibits the class from 2005.
- 3
2014, two companies close the file
Fornaro and colleagues at Novartis and GSK test concentrations up to 500 ng/mL across three cell systems and report no proliferative effect, concluding the results call in to question whether there is a physiological role for MGF.
Buying MGF Peptide (Mechano Growth Factor) in Canada
What ships, how fast, and the paperwork.
The hard part of buying research material is almost never the compound. It is the logistics. What leaves the building, how fast it moves, and what is in the box beside the vial. Here is ours, plainly.
Product identity has a documented history of problems
Ghent University found black market MGF was C-terminal amidated rather than the human sequence. Salt Lake City found an R23H mutant in confiscated vials. Thevis 2014 characterised a 12 kDa full-length MGF with an R109H substitution and a missing terminal lysine. Know what sequence you are asking for.
MGF and PEG-MGF are not interchangeable
The 24-mer and the pegylated version have separate literatures, and the pegylated version has essentially none. Papers about one do not describe the other.
Canadian regulatory status
Health Canada states peptides are generally regulated as prescription drugs and that For Research Use Only labelling does not make a product legal or exempt from regulatory requirements. This is sold as laboratory material, not for human or veterinary use.
Stuff people ask about MGF Peptide (Mechano Growth Factor)
If your question is not here, email us. Real human answers.
MGF, or mechano growth factor, is a synthetic 24-residue peptide matching the C-terminal end of the E-domain of the IGF-1Ec splice variant. Its sequence is YQPPSTNKNTKSQRRKGSTFEERK and its monoisotopic mass is about 2866.5 Da. The parent splice variant is real and load-induced. The free peptide is made synthetically, not purified from tissue.
No. Matheny and colleagues stated it plainly in Endocrinology in 2010: no analogous peptide product of the Igf1 gene has been identified in or isolated from cultured cells, their conditioned medium, or in vivo animal tissues or biological fluids. That has not changed since. The gene produces the transcript, but the free 24-mer has not been caught existing on its own.
Yes, and it did not work. Fornaro and colleagues at Novartis and GSK published in 2014 that concentrations up to 500 ng/mL failed to increase proliferation of C2C12 cells, primary human myoblasts or primary mouse muscle stem cells. It also failed to delay differentiation or activate p-ERK in cardiac myocytes, while IGF-1 in the same assays worked normally.
Not from the original paper. Yang, Alnaqeeb, Simpson and Goldspink reported the stretch-induced IGF-1 splice variant in J Muscle Res Cell Motil in 1996 without using the term. The phrase first appears in McKoy and colleagues in J Physiol in 1999. The name arrived three years after the finding it describes.
Yes, and they are well documented by anti-doping laboratories. Ghent University reported in 2012 that two black market MGF preparations were C-terminal amidated analogues rather than human MGF. The Salt Lake City testing laboratory identified an R23H point mutant in confiscated vials in 2017. Thevis and colleagues characterised a 12 kDa full-length MGF sold in 2014 as a non-natural sequence.
Yes. The WADA Prohibited List names mechano growth factors under section S2.3, growth factors and growth factor modulators, and the class has been prohibited since 2005. Section S2 substances are banned at all times, in and out of competition. Anyone subject to anti-doping testing should treat MGF as a prohibited substance regardless of how it is labelled.
Good pairing options with MGF Peptide (Mechano Growth Factor)
What researchers stack alongside it.
Pairing is where research gets ahead of itself. These are the compounds researchers put in the same order as MGF Peptide (Mechano Growth Factor), which is a statement about ordering habits, not about evidence. Two things in one cart have not been studied together unless somebody studied them together.
Not a molecule. FSH and LH activity extracted from postmenopausal urine and standardised in international units. Still marketed in Canada in 2026, which makes it the rare extract with live approvals.
The unprocessed precursor, all 344 residues with the signal peptide still attached. The protein your body actually secretes is a different animal: 315 residues and 36 cysteines folded just so.
Order MGF Peptide (Mechano Growth Factor) right now
One last look before you decide.
Freeze-dried, COA on the page, ships cold
If you are researching MGF Peptide (Mechano Growth Factor) and you want a source you do not have to second-guess, start with the paperwork on this page. For research use only.
Not for human consumption. Not approved by Health Canada or any other regulatory body.
Page last updated August 19, 2026
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