Research Library · Cell Energy

SLU-PP-332: What the Research Actually Shows

At a Glance

What it is: A synthetic small molecule, not a peptide, that switches on a family of nuclear receptors called estrogen-related receptors (ERRs).
Research areas: skeletal muscle energy metabolism, mitochondrial function, and heart, kidney and metabolic models in mice.
Evidence level: Cell and mouse studies only. We found no published trial that gave SLU-PP-332 to people.
The short version: SLU-PP-332 was built in a university lab as a chemical tool for switching on ERRs, which control genes for mitochondrial energy production. In mice it shifted muscle toward an endurance-type gene program, so its authors called it an exercise mimetic. The record is young, almost all from one research network, and has no human data.

SLU-PP-332 is a synthetic small molecule that activates all three estrogen-related receptors (ERRα, ERRβ and ERRγ), with the strongest pull on ERRα. It was first described in 2023 by a group at Saint Louis University and Washington University, and its research so far sits in cells and mice, mostly on how muscle and heart cells make energy.

Below is what the studies looked at, in what kind of model, and what they reported. This is a summary of published research, not a description of what the compound does in a person.

Not currently stocked. Etched Research does not sell SLU-PP-332. This page is a research summary only. The compounds Etched Research does carry are listed in the shop.

Quick facts

Names: SLU-PP-332. Chemical name 4-hydroxy-N’-(naphthalen-2-ylmethylene)benzohydrazide.
What it is: a synthetic small molecule, not a peptide and not a hormone. It is not related to estrogen in structure. The receptors it binds carry the name “estrogen-related” because their structure resembles the estrogen receptor, but estrogen does not switch them on.
Molecular formula C18H14N2O2, 290.3 g/mol, CAS 303760-60-3 (PubChem CID 5338394).
First described: Billon et al., ACS Chemical Biology, 2023.
Evidence: cells, mice, and human cells grown in a dish. No controlled human trial has been published that we found.
Approval status: SLU-PP-332 is not an approved drug in the United States, and the FDA‘s Drugs@FDA database lists no product containing it.

What the research found, and what it did not

The studies below ran in cells or mice. One used muscle cells taken from people during surgery and grown in a dish, and no SLU-PP-332 was given to those people. The results are listed as the authors reported them.

The founding study (Billon, ACS Chemical Biology, 2023). The paper that introduced SLU-PP-332 as an ERR agonist with the highest potency at ERRα. In a muscle cell line it raised mitochondrial function and cellular respiration. In mice, the authors reported more type IIa oxidative muscle fibers and longer exercise endurance, and found that the effect on endurance depended on ERRα. Cells and mice, not people. PMID 36988910.

Obese mouse models (Billon, Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, 2024). The same group gave SLU-PP-332 to diet-induced obese mice and to ob/ob mice, a genetic obesity model. They reported higher energy expenditure and fatty acid oxidation, less fat mass gain, and better insulin sensitivity. Mouse models. PMID 37739806.

Heart failure model (Xu, Circulation, 2024). Researchers tested SLU-PP-332 and a second ERR agonist, SLU-PP-915, in mice with heart failure caused by surgical pressure overload. Both compounds were reported to improve ejection fraction, reduce fibrosis and improve survival in the model, and genetic experiments pointed to ERRγ as the main receptor involved in the heart. Mouse and cell work. PMID 37961903.

Kidney model in old mice (Wang, American Journal of Pathology, 2023). ERR levels were lower in kidney tissue from older people and older mice. Researchers treated 21-month-old mice with SLU-PP-332 for 8 weeks and reported less protein leakage into urine, less loss of filtering cells, less mitochondrial dysfunction and lower inflammatory markers in the kidney than in untreated old mice. The human piece measured ERR levels in kidney tissue. No one was given the compound. PMID 37717940.

Human muscle cells in a dish (Bonanni, Frontiers in Physiology, 2025). A pilot study took muscle biopsies from 20 women having hip replacement surgery. Muscle precursor cells from the physically inactive women were grown in culture and treated with SLU-PP-332, and the authors reported higher levels of PGC-1α, ERRα and related markers, less oxidative stress, and more myotube formation in those cells. Cells, not a trial. PMID 40692696.

Mapping the scaffold (Okda, International Journal of Biological Macromolecules, 2026). A chemistry study that made and tested a series of SLU-PP-332 analogs to see which parts of the molecule control its activity at ERRα and ERRγ. Several analogs matched it in cell assays with better solubility or stability. Cell assays and computer modeling. PMID 41850449.

Anti-doping chemistry (Avliyakulov, Drug Testing and Analysis, 2026, and Möller, Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry, 2026). Two analytical labs, one of them the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory, identified the breakdown products SLU-PP-332 forms in human liver enzyme preparations, so that sports testing labs can detect it. These are lab chemistry papers, not effect studies. PMIDs 41688415 and 41588687.

How it works

ERRs are nuclear receptors, proteins that sit on DNA and turn sets of genes up or down. They were called “orphan” receptors because no natural hormone had been found that switches them on. ERRα and ERRγ in particular control genes for mitochondrial energy production and for burning fatty acids, and they work alongside a master regulator called PGC-1α. In muscle, exercise raises the activity of this network.

SLU-PP-332 binds ERRs and raises their activity directly. In the founding study, that switched on an acute aerobic exercise gene program in mouse muscle without the mice exercising, which is why the authors used the term exercise mimetic (Billon, 2023). In the heart study, ERRγ did most of the work (Xu, 2024).

That is a different route from AMPK, the energy sensor at the centre of MOTS-c and AICAR research. AMPK sits upstream and senses low energy. ERRs sit at the gene level and carry out part of the response.

What the research does not establish

There is no human trial. The findings come from mice, cell lines, and human cells grown in a dish.
The literature is small and young. The first paper is from 2023, and most of the effect studies come from one research network around the lab that made it.
Authors of three of these papers disclose stock, founding or consulting ties to drug companies, one of them focused on ERR-based therapeutics (conflict-of-interest statements in PMID 36988910, 37961903 and 41850449). That is normal in drug discovery and worth knowing when reading the results.
Endurance in a mouse on a treadmill is a research measure.
Nothing here is a safety conclusion, and this is not a claim that the compound is safe to use.

Anyone who says the human case is settled is out ahead of the research.

Common questions

Is SLU-PP-332 a peptide?

No. SLU-PP-332 is a synthetic small molecule with a molecular weight of about 290, built from two ring systems joined by a short linker (PubChem). It contains no amino acids. It is often discussed alongside research peptides because it comes up in the same mitochondrial and exercise-biology literature.

Does SLU-PP-332 act like estrogen?

No study cited here describes it acting at the estrogen receptor. The receptors it targets are named “estrogen-related” because their structure resembles the estrogen receptor, but they are a separate family that estrogen does not activate (Billon et al., 2023).

What is the difference between SLU-PP-332 and MOTS-c?

They reach the same energy-metabolism network from different ends. SLU-PP-332 is a lab-made small molecule that binds ERR nuclear receptors (Billon et al., 2023). MOTS-c is a 16-amino-acid peptide encoded in mitochondrial DNA, and its founding study traced its effects to the AMPK energy sensor. No published study compares the two directly. MOTS-c is covered on the MOTS-c research summary.

Has SLU-PP-332 been tested in people?

We found no published study that gave SLU-PP-332 to people. The closest work used muscle cells taken from surgery patients and treated in a dish (Bonanni et al., 2025), and liver enzyme preparations used by anti-doping labs to map how it breaks down (Avliyakulov et al., 2026).

Does Etched Research sell SLU-PP-332?

No. Etched Research does not sell SLU-PP-332. This page is in the research library because the compound is part of mitochondrial research, and the library covers more compounds than the shop does.

More in this research area: Cell Energy Research | Research Library

Last reviewed 2026-10-05.

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