What it is
5-Amino-1MQ is not a peptide. It is a small, simple chemical built on a ring structure called quinoline, and it is listed on this site because it is often discussed alongside peptides. It was designed to block an enzyme called NNMT, which is more active in the fat tissue and liver of obese mice.
NNMT uses up two molecules that cells rely on for energy and chemical housekeeping. Researchers suspected that blocking it might leave more of those molecules available and change how fat cells store and burn energy. So far 5-Amino-1MQ has been studied only in cells in a dish and in mice. It has never been tested in a registered human trial, and no medicine containing it is approved.
5-Amino-1MQ (5-amino-1-methylquinolin-1-ium, C10H11N2+, 159.21 g/mol as the cation) is a permanently charged N-methylated quinolinium. It inhibits nicotinamide N-methyltransferase (NNMT), a cytosolic enzyme that transfers a methyl group from S-adenosylmethionine (SAM) to nicotinamide, producing 1-methylnicotinamide (1-MNA) and S-adenosylhomocysteine. By consuming nicotinamide and SAM, NNMT is proposed to limit NAD+ salvage and cellular methylation capacity in adipocytes.
Docking studies predict that methylquinoliniums bind the nicotinamide substrate site. Neelakantan et al. (2018) reported a biochemical IC50 of about 1 µM for 5-Amino-1MQ, an EC50 of 2.3 µM for lowering 1-MNA in adipocytes, and no inhibition of the related SAM-dependent methyltransferases DNMT1 and PRMT3, catechol-O-methyltransferase, or the NAD+ salvage enzymes NAMPT and SIRT1 at the concentrations tested. Despite its permanent charge, it showed high permeability in parallel artificial membrane and Caco-2 assays. In cultured adipocytes it lowered 1-MNA, raised NAD+ and SAM, and suppressed lipogenesis.
No human pharmacokinetic, metabolism or toxicology data have been published.
Who made it and when
The compound came from Stanley Watowich’s laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, working with chemists at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Their interest followed a 2014 study in the journal Nature showing that mice with NNMT switched off in fat and liver were protected from weight gain on a fatty diet.
In 2017 the Texas group published a comparison of several families of candidate NNMT blockers and found that the quinolinium family worked best. In 2018 they reported that 5-Amino-1MQ reduced fat in obese mice. The University of Texas holds a patent on related quinoline compounds, although its granted claims, as worded, do not cover 5-Amino-1MQ itself. Watowich later founded a company, Ridgeline Therapeutics, whose scientists published further mouse work on the compound in 2024. No company has registered a human trial.
Kraus et al. (Nature 2014) reported that NNMT expression is increased in white adipose tissue and liver of obese and diabetic mice, and that Nnmt knockdown there protected against diet-induced obesity by raising energy expenditure, with higher adipose SAM and NAD+ and effects on histone methylation, polyamine flux and SIRT1 signalling.
Neelakantan et al. (J Med Chem 2017) screened N-methylated quinolinium, isoquinolinium, pyridinium and benzimidazolium or benzothiazolium analogues and identified quinoliniums as the preferred scaffold (IC50 around 1 µM). The 2018 Biochemical Pharmacology paper characterised the permeability, selectivity and in-vivo effect of 5-Amino-1MQ. The University of Texas System holds US 11,401,243 (inventors Watowich, Neelakantan, Wang and McHardy; priority 2017-03-30); its specification describes 5-Amino-1MQ, but claim 1 requires two or more non-hydrogen substituents at ring positions 5 to 8, which on its wording excludes the singly substituted 5-Amino-1MQ. Later work from the group covered aged-muscle regeneration (2019), combination with a low-fat diet (2022) and, in 2024, mouse studies from Ridgeline Therapeutics (Houston), a company Watowich founded. Whether Ridgeline holds a licence or plans human studies of 5-Amino-1MQ could not be verified; no IND for it is public.
What the data say
In obese mice on a high-fat diet, 11 days of injections of 5-Amino-1MQ led to about 5% weight loss, while untreated mice kept gaining slightly. Their fat tissue shrank by about a third, their fat cells got smaller and blood cholesterol fell, even though they ate no less. Other mouse studies from the same group reported faster weight normalisation when the drug was combined with a low-fat diet, better muscle repair in old mice given an NNMT blocker and, in 2024, less fatty liver and better blood-sugar handling in obese mice.
All of this is animal and cell data from one research group and its company. No human study of any kind has been published or registered, so nothing is known about its effects, dosing or safety in people.
Animal data: in diet-induced obese mice on a high-fat diet (n=9 per group), subcutaneous 5-Amino-1MQ three times daily for 11 days produced a 2.0 ± 0.6 g loss (about 5.1% of body weight) versus a 0.6 ± 0.4 g gain (about 1.4%) in controls. White adipose mass fell by about 35% (P under 0.001), adipocyte size by over 30% and plasma total cholesterol by about 30% (both P under 0.05), with no change in food intake and no observable adverse effects (Neelakantan et al., 2018).
Dimet-Wiley et al. (Sci Rep 2022) reported that 5-Amino-1MQ plus a switch to a low-fat diet normalised adiposity and body weight to lean-control levels faster than the diet switch alone. Neelakantan et al. (2019) reported that an NNMT inhibitor (5 or 10 mg/kg), not named in the abstract, roughly doubled regenerating myofibre area and raised peak torque about 70% after injury in 24-month-old mice. Babula et al. (Diabetes Obes Metab 2024; Ridgeline Therapeutics authors) reported that 28 days of once-daily dosing dose-dependently limited weight and fat gain, improved insulin sensitivity and reduced liver steatosis in obese mice, and gave mouse pharmacokinetic data.
Human data: none. ClinicalTrials.gov lists no study of 5-Amino-1MQ.
Regulatory picture
Three separate facts. Approval: no medicine containing 5-Amino-1MQ is approved by the FDA or any other regulator, and no company has announced a human trial of it. Compounding: it does not appear anywhere on the FDA’s lists for pharmacy compounding, neither the approved ingredients list nor the three categories of nominated substances, so it has never been assessed for that use. Enforcement: no FDA warning letter naming 5-Amino-1MQ was found. Its presence on the market as a “research chemical” does not mean it has been evaluated for safety in people.
Approval: none. No IND-stage programme, NDA or foreign marketing authorisation could be identified, and ClinicalTrials.gov has no registered study.
Compounding: 5-Amino-1MQ is not on the 503A bulks list in 21 CFR 216.23 and does not appear in Category 1, 2 or 3 of FDA’s list of substances nominated under section 503A (updated 2026-05-14), nor on FDA’s page of bulk drug substances that may present significant safety risks (updated 2026-04-22). It is not the active ingredient of any FDA-approved drug. Because it has not been evaluated under any of these pathways, this article records compounding status as unknown.
Enforcement: no FDA warning letter naming 5-Amino-1MQ was found in searches of FDA’s warning-letter pages for this article.
Sport: no named listing of 5-Amino-1MQ on the WADA Prohibited List was verified for this article.
