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Not medical advice. The Atlas is not a substitute for a clinician who can examine you.

Phoenixin

PNX-14 Anorexigenic Neuropeptide

Evidence grade 1 of 5, Untested. Read how the Atlas grades evidence.

The current grade of 1 is honest and stays. Phoenixin was first identified in 2013 by Yosten and colleagues, and the entire mechanistic and behavioral case (anxiolytic-like effects, GnRH and luteinizing-hormone potentiation, food-intake and metabolic signaling) rests on rodent, zebrafish, pufferfish, porcine and in-vitro cell work. A 2024 Frontiers in Endocrinology systematic scoping review found no human intervention trials of phoenixin and only a small number of observational human studies. All human data to date are association studies of endogenous circulating phoenixin-14, for example higher serum levels in women with obesity and polycystic ovary syndrome that correlate with BMI, HOMA-IR, LH and testosterone. No trial has administered phoenixin to a person.

FDA
Not FDA approved; no marketing application. Human work to date is observational measurement of endogenous levels, not administration.
WADA
Not listed on the WADA Prohibited List.

Reference only. Not medical advice.

What can go wrong

Not tested in humans by administration; no human safety data. Vendor material is a research-only reagent, not for human use.

Talk to a clinician before taking this. The Atlas can tell you what has been studied about Phoenixin. It cannot tell you how it would interact with your body, your history, or anything else you are taking, and nothing on this page is a reason to start.

A hypothalamic neuropeptide first identified in 2013, cleaved from the SMIM20 precursor and signaling through the orphan receptor GPR173. In animal and cell studies it is associated with reduced anxiety-like behavior, positive regulation of the reproductive axis, and metabolic and anti-inflammatory signaling. Human data are limited to observational associations of circulating phoenixin-14 with conditions such as PCOS, obesity and type 2 diabetes, with no human intervention trials.

What people take it for

These are the reasons people give for taking it. They are not effects it has been shown to have.

  • Anxiety reduction (animal models)
  • Reproductive health (research)

How it is supposed to work

Phoenixin is a small neuropeptide, discovered in 2013, that is most concentrated in the hypothalamus and acts through the receptor GPR173. It was first linked to reproduction (helping drive the GnRH-to-LH signal) and is also involved in appetite and energy balance, glucose and lipid metabolism, mood, memory and even itch, making it a multidimensional but still poorly understood molecule.

Phoenixin is a small neuropeptide cut from a larger membrane protein, with two main forms of fourteen and twenty amino acids, acting through a receptor called GPR173. It is highly conserved across species and is found in the brain and reproductive tissues.

Type
Neuropeptide
Forms
14 and 20 aa
Receptor
GPR173
Main role
Reproduction
Human trials
None
Status
Research

A Newly Found Neuropeptide, Sold Far Ahead Of Its Animal-Only Evidence

Phoenixin is a genuinely fascinating but very early-stage molecule, and the gap between its biology and its marketing is the honest center of the story. First identified in 2013, its best-established role is as a positive regulator of the reproductive hormone axis, potentiating luteinizing hormone and controlling the estrous cycle, working near the kisspeptin and GnRH neurons that govern reproduction. Beyond that it has been tied, in animal and cell studies, to appetite, anxiety, memory, energy metabolism, inflammation and even cardiac protection, an unusually broad portfolio that reflects active exploratory research. The crucial caveat is that essentially all of this is preclinical, in rodents and fish, with effects that sometimes flip between species, and there are no human therapeutic trials, no approval and no established dosing. Sold gray-market as a research peptide for reproductive, libido, mood and appetite purposes, its claims run far ahead of any human evidence.

Safety in detail

There are zero human intervention trials of phoenixin, so no human dosing, efficacy or safety profile exists. Any product sold as PNX-14 or phoenixin-14 is an unapproved research chemical labeled not for human consumption.

  • Phoenixin is an endogenous research peptide with no established administered-form human safety data.
  • Its biology is still being worked out, with some conflicting findings.
  • It is not a consumer product; any such material would be gray-market and unverified.
  • Not approved for any use.

Children and teenagers

Phoenixin has no validated pediatric use and is an unapproved research peptide affecting reproductive hormones, making it especially inappropriate for minors.

What people get wrong

Nothing recorded here yet. There is almost certainly something people get wrong about this one, and the blank space means we have not written it down, not that the record is clean.

Who profits, and who pushes back

Nobody is named here yet, because we have not done that work on this entry. Read that as unfinished. Somebody almost certainly sells this, and somebody almost certainly disputes it. Assume both until we have checked.

Phoenixin reaches users through the gray-market research-peptide trade, sold for reproductive, libido and mood purposes on the strength of exploratory animal data. There is no approved product, and its market runs entirely on early-stage promise.

How we got here

Phoenixin was discovered in 2013 by Yosten, Samson and colleagues while screening for conserved secreted peptides, and was named after the mythical phoenix because its sequence rose from a previously overlooked region of the SMIM20 precursor gene, formerly catalogued as C4orf52. Proteolytic cleavage of SMIM20 yields two amidated forms, the 14-residue PNX-14 (reflected in this entry's full name) and the 20-residue PNX-20; the peptide was later linked to the orphan receptor GPR173, also written GRP173 or by its older name SREB3. It has never been developed into a named drug or brand, so across regions it is referred to only by its scientific abbreviations, and it circulates commercially as a research reagent rather than any approved product.

Phoenixin was first identified in 2013 as a peptide cut from a small membrane protein, initially characterized for its role in reproduction, and in the years since has been linked to an expanding range of functions in animal studies, while remaining untested as a human therapy.

The numbers behind the grade

Type
Neuropeptide
Discovered
2013
Receptor
GPR173
Roles
Reproduction, appetite, mood
Stage
Preclinical
Approved
No

The people taking it

An emerging, multifunctional neuropeptide of growing research interest, studied as a marker and potential target, but not a consumer compound.

Phoenixin’s users are experimentally minded biohackers interested in reproduction, libido, mood or appetite, plus the research community mapping its many proposed roles.

Studied in research for reproduction, metabolism and behavior, and as a potential disease marker; it has no approved consumer use.

Set against the alternatives

Phoenixin sits in the reproductive-control neighborhood alongside kisspeptin and the GnRH peptides, but with far less development behind it. Among the neuropeptides in this library it is one of the newest and least human-tested, closer to Spexin in being an early metabolic-and-reproductive curiosity than to a developed drug. Against the pharmaceutical target PACAP-38, it is at a much earlier and more speculative stage.

What we do not know

  • What phoenixin’s precise physiological role is, given conflicting data.
  • Whether it can be targeted for obesity, diabetes or infertility.
  • How it interacts with related appetite peptides.

The market for this

What follows describes how this is bought and sold. It is not a buying guide and it is not an endorsement of any seller.

There is no approved consumer route. It exists mainly as a research compound; given the limited human data, self-experimentation is not advisable.

Not produced as an approved drug for this use; any consumer-facing material is research-use-only, typically synthesized overseas in China, with no quality assurance and frequently no certificate of analysis.

What this entry does not yet cover

What follows is unfinished work on our side, not a finding about Phoenixin.

  • Timeline. We have not built the dated record of research and regulatory events.
  • Supply chain. We have not mapped where it is made.
  • What could change. No forward-looking summary yet.

Sources

The studies that matter

  • Discovery and reproduction2013

    Identified by a bioinformatics search; early work showed it regulates the reproductive hormone axis.

  • Metabolism and behavior2010s-2020s

    Studies tie phoenixin to appetite, energy and glucose handling, and to anxiety and memory, though results are sometimes conflicting.

  • Knockout findings2024

    Mice lacking phoenixin showed no major fertility or metabolic impairment but behavioral differences, suggesting a nuanced, partly redundant role.