Acetyl hexapeptide-3 is a synthetic anti-wrinkle

Anti-aging cream

Anti-aging creams are predominantly moisturiser based cosmeceutical skin care products marketed with the promise of making the consumer look younger by reducing visible wrinkles, expression lines, blemishes, pigmentation changes, discolourations and other environmentally related conditions of the...

 cosmetics ingredient. It is a peptide

Peptide

Peptides are short polymers of amino acid monomers linked by peptide bonds. They are distinguished from proteins on the basis of size, typically containing less than 50 monomer units. The shortest peptides are dipeptides, consisting of two amino acids joined by a single peptide bond...

 which is a shortened version of Botulinum toxin

Botulinum toxin

Botulinum toxin is a protein produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, and is considered the most powerful neurotoxin ever discovered. Botulinum toxin causes Botulism poisoning, a serious and life-threatening illness in humans and animals...

 (Botox). Acetyl hexapeptide-3 is marketed as Argireline by the Barcelona-based research laboratory Lipotec.

Overview and common uses

Argireline is used in attempts to decrease the visible effects of aging by reducing the deep wrinkles and lines that occur around the forehead and eyes.

Chemically, when applied as a solution to specific areas of the face, Argireline inhibits the reactions that cause muscles to move or contract – for example when forming facial expressions such as smiling or frowning.

Cosmetic studies

Both in vitro

In vitro

In vitro refers to studies in experimental biology that are conducted using components of an organism that have been isolated from their usual biological context in order to permit a more detailed or more convenient analysis than can be done with whole organisms. Colloquially, these experiments...

(outside a living organism) and in vivo

In vivo

In vivo is experimentation using a whole, living organism as opposed to a partial or dead organism, or an in vitro controlled environment. Animal testing and clinical trials are two forms of in vivo research...

(using a living organism) tests have been carried out on Argireline, but double-blind

Double-blind

A blind or blinded experiment is a scientific experiment where some of the people involved are prevented from knowing certain information that might lead to conscious or subconscious bias on their part, invalidating the results....

 clinical trial

Clinical trial

Clinical trials are a set of procedures in medical research and drug development that are conducted to allow safety and efficacy data to be collected for health interventions...

s results have not been published.

Safety research

Argireline has been developed relatively recently and therefore reports on its long-term use have not yet been produced.

Chemistry

Argireline is the hexapeptide with the sequence Ac

Acetyl

In organic chemistry, acetyl is a functional group, the acyl with chemical formula COCH3. It is sometimes represented by the symbol Ac . The acetyl group contains a methyl group single-bonded to a carbonyl...

-Glu

Glutamic acid

Glutamic acid is one of the 20 proteinogenic amino acids, and its codons are GAA and GAG. It is a non-essential amino acid. The carboxylate anions and salts of glutamic acid are known as glutamates...

-Glu-Met

Methionine

Methionine is an α-amino acid with the chemical formula HO2CCHCH2CH2SCH3. This essential amino acid is classified as nonpolar. This amino-acid is coded by the codon AUG, also known as the initiation codon, since it indicates mRNA's coding region where translation into protein...

-Gln

Glutamine

Glutamine is one of the 20 amino acids encoded by the standard genetic code. It is not recognized as an essential amino acid but may become conditionally essential in certain situations, including intensive athletic training or certain gastrointestinal disorders...

-Arg

Arginine

Arginine is an α-amino acid. The L-form is one of the 20 most common natural amino acids. At the level of molecular genetics, in the structure of the messenger ribonucleic acid mRNA, CGU, CGC, CGA, CGG, AGA, and AGG, are the triplets of nucleotide bases or codons that codify for arginine during...

-Arg-NH₂.