5-Amino-1MQ

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Mechanism

5-Amino-1MQ is a small molecule, not a peptide. Chemically it is 5-amino-1-methylquinolinium iodide (C10H11IN2, CAS 42464-96-0), and it is catalogued here alongside NAD+ and the mitochondrial peptides because of commercial overlap alone.

Its target is nicotinamide N-methyltransferase (NNMT), a cytosolic enzyme that transfers a methyl group from S-adenosylmethionine (SAM) onto nicotinamide, producing 1-methylnicotinamide (1-MNA). Both inputs matter: nicotinamide is the substrate the NAD+ salvage pathway recycles back into NAD+, and SAM is the cell's principal methyl donor, so NNMT activity draws down two pools at once. Inhibiting the enzyme reverses that. In cultured mouse adipocytes, methylquinolinium NNMT inhibitors lowered intracellular 1-MNA, raised NAD+ and SAM, and suppressed lipogenesis.

That is a different lever from NAD+ itself, which supplies the pool directly rather than blocking a route by which its precursor is consumed, and different again from MOTS-c, which signals through AMPK, or SS-31, which binds the inner-membrane lipid cardiolipin. The comparison is mechanistic and does not rank the compounds.

Preclinical research

NNMT became a metabolic drug target with a 2014 Nature paper from Barbara Kahn's group at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center: knocking down NNMT in fat and liver with antisense oligonucleotides protected mice against diet-induced obesity by increasing energy expenditure, and raised adipose SAM and NAD+ levels.

5-Amino-1MQ itself was characterized by Neelakantan and colleagues at the University of Texas Medical Branch, in Biochemical Pharmacology in 2018. The scaffold proved selective, sparing related SAM-dependent methyltransferases and NAD+ salvage enzymes. In diet-induced obese mice on a high-fat diet, 11 days of systemic treatment significantly reduced body weight, white adipose mass, adipocyte size and plasma total cholesterol, with no change in total food intake and, the authors reported, no observable adverse effects.

Two follow-ups from the same group extended the picture beyond adiposity. A 2019 study in 24-month-old mice reported that NNMT inhibition after an induced injury to the tibialis anterior muscle produced nearly double the regenerating myofiber cross-sectional area and 67% greater peak torque per gram of body mass than controls, though torque normalized to fiber area did not differ. A 2021 Scientific Reports paper in diet-induced obese mice found that pairing NNMT inhibition with a lean-diet substitution normalized body composition and liver adiposity to age-matched lean-control levels.

Human evidence and regulatory status

All of the above is cell-culture and rodent work. There is no published human study of 5-Amino-1MQ, and no interventional trial of any NNMT inhibitor registered on ClinicalTrials.gov as of October 2026. Drugs@FDA lists no approved application for it.

It also sits outside the Category 2 and advisory-committee arc traced on the BPC-157 and MOTS-c pages. As of October 2026 it is absent from both tables of the FDA's Category 2 safety-risk page, from the FDA's 503A and 503B bulk drug substance category lists, and from the July 2026 Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee agenda. In a January 2026 warning letter to a 503B outsourcing facility, the FDA stated that drugs compounded from 5-Amino-1MQ are not eligible for the 503B exemptions, because it is not on the 503B bulks list and is not used to compound a drug on the shortage list. Material sold by research vendors is offered for laboratory use only and not for human consumption.

Vendor naming and product formats

Vendors write the name several ways, with "5-Amino-1MQ", "5-Amino-MQ", "5Amino-1MQ" and the compressed "5A1MQ" all appearing in product titles and URLs. Its developers' papers call it "NNMTi", which is also PubChem's preferred title for the record.

Vendors list it as vials and also as capsules, tablets and liquids measured in milliliters. Its developers read their permeability assays as suggesting oral absorption, though their 2018 obesity study in mice gave the compound by subcutaneous injection.

One identity note: 42464-96-0, the CAS number vendors publish, is the iodide salt, and the 5-amino-1-methylquinolinium cation accounts for roughly 56% of that formula weight. As a quaternary ion it is always paired with a counterion, so a stated milligram figure refers to the iodide salt unless a vendor gives the cation's mass.

Related compounds catalogued here

5-Amino-1MQ is also sold inside the NAD+ + MOTS-C + 5-Amino-1MQ blend, where the vial figure covers all three components together and is therefore not comparable to a single-compound vial. Other non-peptides indexed in the same mitochondrial section include SLU-PP-332, methylene blue and L-carnitine.

PeptideScouter indexes 5-Amino-1MQ per milligram across vendors and verifies identity against its molecular formula. Per-milligram figures cover vials only. Capsule, tablet and liquid listings are indexed but excluded from those comparisons, since their size is a count of units or a volume rather than one vial mass.

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