Research methodology

1. Search

The corpus is built from a single PubMed query against titles and abstracts, covering the spellings and the full name of the peptide:

"MOTS-c"[tiab] OR "MOTSc"[tiab] OR "MOTS c"[tiab] OR "mitochondrial open reading frame of the 12S rRNA-c"[tiab] OR "mitochondrial open reading frame of the 12S rRNA type-c"[tiab]

The query, the date and the resulting identifier list are stored in the repository alongside the raw response, so the search can be reproduced exactly. It is re-run periodically; the date above is the current snapshot.

2. Screen

Each returned record is screened for whether MOTS-c is a substantive subject. Records are excluded, with the reason recorded, when the term appears only in a passing list, when the acronym refers to something else entirely, or when the record is an erratum, correction or retraction notice. Papers retracted by the publisher are excluded from the evidence index.

3. Verify

Title, journal, publication date, author list, DOI and PMC identifier come from PubMed E-utilities and are written into the dataset by script. No bibliographic field is hand-entered, which removes a whole class of transcription error. The verify:sources check re-resolves every identifier against the live records and fails if one no longer matches.

4. Annotate

Each included record is annotated from its abstract, or from its title alone where no abstract is indexed, in which case the record says so. The annotation describes what the study did and reported. The guiding rule is that the study is the subject: records say “reported that…” or “measured…”, never “MOTS-c does…”.

Annotations record the study model, the substance studied, species, system or population, design, sample size as reported, controls, endpoints, findings, limitations, pathways measured and research areas.

Study models

Substance studied

This field carries more weight than any other on the site, because it separates studies that gave MOTS-c from studies that merely measured it.

5. Grade

Each record gets one evidence tier, assigned from study design alone. Tiers are checked against the model when the dataset is built, so a mismatch cannot ship.

6. Appraise

Alongside the tier, six dimensions are recorded separately. They are deliberately never combined into a single score, because a composite hides exactly the disagreements that matter.

• Relevance to MOTS-c.
• Model applicability.
• Sample size.
• Controls.
• Outcome validity.
• Support for its own conclusion.

7. Review before publication

Records carry an editorial review status. Approvals are recorded in the repository and entered through a local-only tool; they are never set from the public site. A production build can be configured to fail if it renders a citation that has not been approved. Current status: 253 of 253 records approved.

8. What is deliberately excluded

• Doses, schedules, routes, reconstitution steps and conversions of animal quantities to human ones.
• Claims that a study shows what MOTS-c does in people when it was conducted in cells or animals.
• Pooled or averaged results across studies with different models, substances or endpoints.
• Retracted findings.
• Invented milestones, counts or metrics. Where a figure is unknown, the site says so.

Coverage and limitations

This is an indexed corpus from one database, not a systematic review. PubMed does not cover every journal; preprints and non-indexed literature are outside it. Annotation from abstracts means details stated only in a full text may be missing, and records annotated from a title alone are marked. Screening and classification involve judgement, and some records sit near a boundary; the editorial policy explains how corrections are handled.

Corpus last verified 2026-11-11.