| Zhang 2026 Antioxidants (Basel) Endogenous MOTS-c measured | Human obs. Healthy young males stratified as elite track and field athletes, recreationally active and sedentary; serum MOTS-c and fitness testing | Measured progressively higher serum MOTS-c from sedentary to recreationally active to elite athlete groups of young males. Reported strong positive correlations of serum MOTS-c with peak oxygen uptake, superoxide dismutase, back muscle endurance and post-fatigue force, a strong inverse correlation with post-exercise malondialdehyde, and no significant correlation with handgrip strength. | Very small groups of 10 young males each; cross-sectional design precludes causal inference; multiple strong correlations in a small sample risk overfitting. | Evidence tier B |
| Suliman 2026 Antioxidants (Basel) Related mitochondrial peptide | Human obs. Adults with kidney failure undergoing living-donor kidney transplantation and controls; serum AGEs, RAGE isoforms and MDPs by ELISA | Measured higher advanced glycation end-products and lower mitochondrial-derived peptides, including MOTS-c, in adults with chronic kidney disease compared with controls. Reported that MOTS-c was inversely associated with advanced glycation end-products and with the AGEs/sRAGE ratio, while humanin was independently associated with AGEs and sRAGE measures. | Cross-sectional design with MOTS-c one of several peptides measured; single-centre transplantation cohort; ELISA-based peptide quantification without orthogonal confirmation. | Evidence tier B |
| Horwath 2026 Exp Physiol Endogenous MOTS-c measured | Human obs. Adults with cerebral palsy using running frames and typically developing adults and adolescents; plasma MDPs before and after endurance exercise | Measured plasma MOTS-c, humanin and SHMOOSE in adults with cerebral palsy and typically developing participants and found comparable basal levels despite lower muscle mass and peak oxygen uptake in the cerebral palsy group. Reported no or only modest changes in circulating MDPs after an acute endurance exercise bout, with no differences between groups. | Small group sizes not reported in the abstract; single post-exercise sampling point; in-house ELISA without external validation and heterogeneous exercise modes between groups. | Evidence tier B |
| Sonay 2026 J Clin Med Endogenous MOTS-c measured | Human obs. Patients with Hashimoto's thyroiditis and age- and sex-matched healthy controls; circulating MOTS-c | Measured lower circulating MOTS-c in patients with Hashimoto's thyroiditis than in matched controls, with inverse correlations with body mass index, fasting glucose, HbA1c, HOMA-IR, thyroid-stimulating hormone, C-reactive protein and thyroid autoantibodies. Reported that Hashimoto's thyroiditis and HOMA-IR were independent determinants of lower MOTS-c in regression analysis. | Cross-sectional design cannot establish direction; single-centre sample measured by ELISA at one time point; medication and iodine status largely unaccounted for beyond levothyroxine use. | Evidence tier B |
| Sączek 2026 Kidney Blood Press Res Endogenous MOTS-c measured | Human obs. Kidney transplant recipients and age-matched controls; serum nardilysin and MOTS-c by ELISA | Measured higher serum nardilysin and MOTS-c in kidney transplant recipients than in age-matched controls over a median follow-up of about 29 months. Reported no significant associations between MOTS-c and cardiometabolic features, and a non-significant trend toward lower allograft loss risk with higher MOTS-c, while nardilysin was inversely associated with prevalent cardiovascular disease. | MOTS-c was a secondary marker alongside nardilysin; single-centre observational design with a small control group and few outcome events; residual confounding likely. | Evidence tier B |
| Musolino 2026 Int Urol Nephrol Endogenous MOTS-c measured | Human obs. Stable peritoneal dialysis patients; MOTS-c measured in serum, urine and peritoneal dialysate | Measured MOTS-c in serum, urine and dialysate of peritoneal dialysis patients and reported that higher urinary MOTS-c was associated with lower advanced oxidation protein products and with higher pulse wave velocity and left ventricular systolic function. Reported that higher dialysate MOTS-c was associated with lower pulse wave velocity and lower blood pressure. | Small single-centre pilot with no control group and cross-sectional correlations only; multiple comparisons across three compartments without adjustment. | Evidence tier B |
| Peng 2026 Biomedicines Endogenous MOTS-c measured | Human obs. Patients with acute myocardial infarction undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention; peripheral and intracoronary serum MOTS-c | Measured lower postoperative peripheral serum MOTS-c in patients with myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury than in those without, while preoperative peripheral and intracoronary levels did not differ. Reported that postoperative peripheral MOTS-c was an independent factor in multivariable regression, with an area under the curve of 0.648 for discriminating injury. | Small single-centre cross-sectional sample; modest discrimination; no longitudinal or repeated sampling, and residual confounding by procedural factors is likely. | Evidence tier B |
| Filibeli 2026 Arch Endocrinol Metab Several | Human obs. Adolescents aged 12-18 with polycystic ovary syndrome and controls; serum ELISA and m.1382A>C sequencing | Measured serum MOTS-c in adolescents with and without polycystic ovary syndrome and found higher mean levels in the PCOS group that did not reach statistical significance. Reported no significant association between MOTS-c levels and anthropometric or metabolic parameters, and all participants carried the wild-type A/A genotype at m.1382A>C. | Cross-sectional case-control design; the genotype analysis was uninformative because no variant carriers were found; single-centre adolescent sample. | Evidence tier B |
| Kutuk 2026 Sci Rep Endogenous MOTS-c measured | Human obs. Women with polycystic ovary syndrome and age- and BMI-matched controls; serum ELISA and vastus lateralis biopsies | Measured lower circulating MOTS-c concentrations and lower skeletal muscle MOTS-c expression in women with polycystic ovary syndrome than in matched controls. Reported that serum MOTS-c was inversely associated with total testosterone and total cholesterol in this cohort. | Cross-sectional case-control design cannot establish direction; muscle expression was assessed only in a subgroup; single-centre sample of women with weak correlation coefficients. | Evidence tier B |
| Yoon 2026 J Clin Transl Endocrinol Endogenous MOTS-c measured | Human obs. Lean adult controls and adults with obesity scheduled for bariatric surgery; adipose tissue from lean kidney donors and participants with obesity | Found higher circulating MOTS-c in adults with obesity than in lean adults, with BMI and HOMA-IR each independently predicting higher levels and a nonlinear relationship with HOMA-IR. Reported that adipose tissue MOTS-c expression did not differ between groups and did not correlate with circulating MOTS-c. Measured no change in circulating MOTS-c 6 months after bariatric surgery despite lower BMI in the 10 participants followed. | Small exploratory sample with only 10 participants followed after surgery, cross-sectional group comparison, adipose tissue controls drawn from kidney donors rather than the lean comparison group, and no sex-stratified analysis reported. | Evidence tier B |