Origins
When was kisspeptin discovered?
Kisspeptin is named after a chocolate. The gene was found in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and the group named it for the town.
The short answer
| Date | 1996 |
| Who | Danny Welch and colleagues |
| Where | Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, Pennsylvania |
| Origin | Found, not designed — it occurs naturally and was isolated from tissue. |
Where it came from
The 1996 work was cancer research, not endocrinology. Welch’s group were looking for genes that suppress metastasis and found one, which they called KISS1 — after Hershey’s Kisses, made in the town where the laboratory sits. Its protein product was named metastin.
Several years later the same molecule was found to be the ligand for an orphan receptor, GPR54, and to sit at the top of the reproductive hormone axis. That second finding is why the compound is discussed at all today, and it had nothing to do with why it was originally named.
Kisspeptin-10 is the ten-residue C-terminal fragment — the shortest piece that still binds the receptor. The full protein is 54 residues, and fragments of 13 and 14 residues are also studied, which is why the number after the name matters when reading a certificate.
Why it is called that
From KISS1, named for Hershey’s Kisses. The 10 is the number of residues in the fragment.
Where it stands now
Kisspeptin-10 has not been approved as a medicine anywhere.
What this page does not say
Nothing above is a statement about what Kisspeptin-10 does in a body, and none of it is guidance on use. A compound’s history is a record of laboratories and dates; it is not evidence for anything, and the fact that a programme was looking for something is not a finding that it was found.
More on Kisspeptin-10
What is Kisspeptin-10? · The full timeline · Kisspeptin-10 — sizes and prices
