5-amino-1mq

Origin and structure

5-amino-1MQ was developed by Stanley Watowich's group at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, working with chemists at the University of Texas at San Antonio. In 2017 the group described a series of N-methylated quinolinium compounds that block the enzyme nicotinamide N-methyltransferase (NNMT), the best of them at concentrations of about 1 micromolar. A follow-up paper, published online in November 2017, picked 5-amino-1MQ from that series because it passed easily through cell membranes, left related enzymes largely alone and worked in cultured fat cells, and was the first to test it in obese mice.

Despite the 'amino' in its name, 5-amino-1MQ is not a peptide and contains no amino acids: the name refers to a single amino group (NH2) on a quinoline ring, two fused rings of carbon atoms, one of which contains a nitrogen atom. A methyl group on that nitrogen gives the molecule a permanent positive charge, so it always comes as a salt. The ion has the formula C10H11N2+ and a molar mass of 159.2 g/mol (CAS 685079-15-6); the FDA's substance register also lists the iodide salt, C10H11IN2, with a molar mass of 286.1 g/mol (CAS 42464-96-0).

Watowich founded Ridgeline Therapeutics, a company in Houston; the group's papers from 2021 onwards declare this and list his co-author Harshini Neelakantan as a paid employee of the company, and the group describes 5-amino-1MQ as its proprietary compound. In 2024 the company's scientists wrote that they were still working to improve it, in particular its fast breakdown in mice and an unwanted effect on another enzyme, MAO-A.

How it is thought to work

NNMT is an enzyme in the liver, fat tissue and other organs. It takes a methyl group from S-adenosylmethionine (SAM), the body's main methyl donor, and attaches it to nicotinamide, a form of vitamin B3 that cells recycle into NAD+, a coenzyme at the centre of energy metabolism. The product, 1-methylnicotinamide (1-MNA), drops out of that recycling route.

In 2014 a group at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School found that NNMT expression was higher in the fat and liver of obese and diabetic mice, and that switching NNMT down in those tissues with antisense oligonucleotides protected mice from diet-induced obesity: they used more energy, and their fat tissue contained more SAM and NAD+. That genetic work, not 5-amino-1MQ itself, is the basis for the idea that blocking NNMT could help against obesity.

Computer modelling places 5-amino-1MQ in the pocket of NNMT where nicotinamide binds. In cultured mouse fat cells it lowered 1-MNA, raised NAD+ by up to 1.6 times and raised SAM, and in obese mice it lowered weight without lowering food intake. The authors attribute this to higher energy use, but none of the 5-amino-1MQ studies measured energy expenditure directly. In the 2018 tests it barely affected several related methyltransferases and the NAD+ enzymes NAMPT and SIRT1, but a broader screen in 2024 found that it also inhibits MAO-A (see the safety section).

Is 5-amino-1MQ approved?

No. No medicine containing 5-amino-1MQ is authorised in the EU or the US, and no clinical trial with it has been registered. Research material sold under the name is not a medicine.

• EU: neither the EMA's list of authorised medicines nor its Article 57 database of medicines authorised in the member states contains 5-amino-1MQ (checked 28 October 2026).
• Netherlands: no product with 5-amino-1MQ is authorised, so it may not be sold, advertised or supplied for use in people.
• US: not FDA-approved, and not nominated for the list of bulk substances that pharmacies may use for compounding; the FDA's list of nominated substances, updated on 14 May 2026, does not include it.
• Clinical trials: ClinicalTrials.gov lists no study of 5-amino-1MQ, and a search for NNMT inhibitors finds none either (searched 28 October 2026).

What the research shows

All published evidence comes from cell cultures, mice and one pharmacokinetic study in rats, and the obesity and muscle studies all come from the Texas group. The efficacy studies in mice were small, with six to thirteen animals per group, and lasted from 11 days to about two months. In order of publication:

• Cells (2018): in cultured mouse fat cells, 5-amino-1MQ lowered the NNMT product 1-MNA, raised NAD+ and SAM, and cut the build-up of fat in maturing fat cells by up to 70%.
• Obese mice, 11 days (Neelakantan et al. 2018): 9 male mice per group received injections three times a day. Treated mice lost 5.1% of their body weight while controls gained 1.4%; food intake did not differ, the main abdominal fat pad was about 35% lighter, fat cells were more than 30% smaller and total cholesterol was about 30% lower.
• Old mice with a muscle injury (Neelakantan et al. 2019): 24-month-old mice received injections twice a day from a week before until one or three weeks after an induced injury (10 to 13 per group in the main experiment). At the higher dose, regenerating muscle fibres were about 1.8 times as large after one week, and the injured muscle produced 67% more force relative to body weight than in untreated mice.
• Obese mice switched to a lean diet (Sampson et al. 2021): over about seven weeks, the 8 mice given 5-amino-1MQ with the diet switch lost 6.3 g against 2.9 g with the diet switch alone, and about 29% of their fat mass against about 3%; their liver fat fell to the level of mice kept on the lean diet throughout.
• Old mice and exercise (Dimet-Wiley et al. 2024): 35 female mice aged 22 months received daily injections of 5-amino-1MQ or saline for about two months, with or without a weighted running wheel. Compared with sedentary untreated mice, grip strength was about 40% higher with 5-amino-1MQ alone, 20% higher with exercise alone and 60% higher with both.
• Obese mice, about four weeks (Babula et al. 2024, by Ridgeline Therapeutics): 8 male mice per group received a low or a high dose by injection once a day. On the high dose they gained 0.9 g against 5.4 g in controls, without eating less; glucose tolerance and insulin levels improved, and liver fat and the liver enzymes ALT and AST fell. The low dose had no significant effect on weight.
• Cancer cells (Pompei et al. 2025): one of the few studies from outside the Texas group, by researchers in Ancona, Italy, with chemists from Leiden University. In the dish, 5-amino-1MQ and two other NNMT inhibitors lowered the viability of bone cancer (osteosarcoma) and Merkel cell carcinoma cell lines; no animals were treated.
• People: no published study and no registered trial.

Safety, uptake and open questions

There are no human safety data. No toxicology study of 5-amino-1MQ has been published, and the mouse studies were short and small. The 2018 study saw no observable adverse effects in obese mice over its 11 days. In the 2024 study, treated obese mice had markedly fewer white blood cells, mainly lymphocytes and monocytes, which the authors linked to improved insulin sensitivity.

Uptake by mouth is uncertain. In mice only 3.5% of an oral dose reached the bloodstream, which the developers put down to poor absorption from the gut and fast breakdown in the liver; in rats the figure was 38%. It has never been measured in people. That matters because 5-amino-1MQ is mostly discussed as an oral product, while the mouse studies on weight and muscle used injections under the skin.

Two further unknowns. In a 2024 screen against a panel of receptors and enzymes, 5-amino-1MQ inhibited MAO-A by 67% at the concentration tested. MAO-A breaks down serotonin and noradrenaline, and medicines that block it, such as some antidepressants, can interact with other drugs and with tyramine-rich foods; whether 5-amino-1MQ reaches such levels in people is unknown. And because the molecule carries a permanent charge, it always comes as a salt: in the iodide salt listed in the FDA's substance register, iodide makes up 44% of the weight, an iodine load that no study of 5-amino-1MQ has looked at.

Finally, the evidence base is narrow. The obesity and muscle studies come from one group whose leaders have a commercial stake in NNMT inhibitors, they were done only in mice, and no independent group has published a replication of the weight results.

Frequently asked questions

Is 5-amino-1MQ a peptide?

No. It is a small synthetic molecule, a methylated quinolinium ion with a molar mass of 159.2 g/mol, much smaller than most peptides and with no amino acids in it. The 'amino' in the name refers to a single amino group (NH2) on the ring. It is often sold alongside peptides, but chemically it is a small molecule, like most ordinary drugs.

Has 5-amino-1MQ been tested in humans?

No. There is no published human study and no registered clinical trial. Everything known about its effects comes from cell cultures and from mouse studies of at most about two months with six to thirteen animals per group, nearly all from the group that developed it. Weight loss in obese mice does not show that it would work, or be safe, in people.

Is 5-amino-1MQ legal in the Netherlands?

5-amino-1MQ is not a registered medicine in the Netherlands or anywhere else in the EU, so it may not be sold, advertised or supplied for use in people. Trading it as research material is a different status, which our guide on research-use-only products in the Netherlands explains. For athletes it is prohibited however it was obtained.

Is 5-amino-1MQ banned in sport?

Yes, at all times. It is not named on the WADA Prohibited List, but class S0 bans any pharmacological substance that no other class covers and that no health authority has approved for human therapeutic use, and 5-amino-1MQ has no such approval. It is prohibited in and out of competition; the Dutch Dopingautoriteit uses the same list.

Is 5-amino-1MQ absorbed when swallowed?

That is not known for people. In the only oral study in mice, 3.5% of the dose reached the bloodstream, which the developers put down to poor uptake from the gut and fast breakdown in the liver; in rats the figure was 38%. Because the mouse studies on weight and muscle used injections, they say nothing about oral products.

How is 5-amino-1MQ different from NAD+ boosters such as NMN?

NMN and nicotinamide riboside (NR) are precursors: raw material the body turns into NAD+. 5-amino-1MQ supplies nothing; it blocks NNMT, the enzyme that diverts nicotinamide out of NAD+ recycling, and in cultured fat cells it raised NAD+ by up to 1.6 times. It also leaves more SAM, the methyl donor that NNMT uses up. Unlike NMN and NR, it has never been tested in people.

Storage and handling

Store according to product-label instructions and batch handling notes. Lyophilized research peptides are commonly kept dry, protected from light, and handled with clean laboratory technique.

References

Checked against these sources on 28 October 2026.

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