SLU-PP-915

SLU-PP-915 is studied as part of the "exercise-mimetic" research field — work that tries to pharmacologically reproduce part of the molecular effect of physical exercise on muscle. It is a synthetic small molecule, a pan-agonist of the estrogen-related receptors ERRα/β/γ, developed at Saint Louis University in the Thomas Burris programme. It is not a peptide. And, despite a shared origin, it is not simply a "version of SLU-PP-332": 915 is built on a thiophene scaffold with a boronic acid moiety, whereas 332 is an acylhydrazone. The JPET authors explicitly call 915 a chemically distinct pan-ERR agonist.

The reason 915 exists at all is pharmacokinetic. SLU-PP-332 is metabolically unstable, and in studies it was given by injection. Hampton et al. (Eur J Med Chem, 2023) showed that replacing the phenol or aniline group with a boronic acid preserves activity at ERR (EC₅₀ ≈ 414 / 435 / 378 nM for ERRα/β/γ) while raising stability in human and mouse liver microsomes (T½ ≥ 60 min). This gave the series its first orally bioavailable member.

In preclinical work by Billon et al. (J Pharmacol Exp Ther, 2026) oral SLU-PP-915 in mice increased aerobic capacity and induced the Ddit4 gene to a level comparable to treadmill running, and in combination with training it further enhanced expression of mitochondrial genes. No human studies exist: the entire evidence base is limited to cell models and mice, and no conclusions about an effect in humans can be drawn from it.

A separate line of work (Möller et al., Rapid Commun Mass Spectrom, 2026) described seven phase I metabolites and analytical targets for doping control: the compound is being studied as a potential object of abuse in sport, although it is not currently on the WADA Prohibited List.

A related compound in the same category is SLU-PP-332; the rest of the category is ERR agonists.