Mitochondria have an inner membrane folded into an enormous surface area, and studded across it is cardiolipin, a lipid found almost nowhere else in the cell. SS-31 binds to it.
That is a rare thing in a small peptide: a specific structural target inside a specific organelle.
The three names
SS-31, elamipretide and MTP-131 are the same molecule. SS-31 comes from the original research designation, elamipretide is the assigned generic name, and MTP-131 comes from a development programme.
This matters when you are comparing certificates or searching the literature, because a paper indexed under one name will not come up in a search for another.
Structure
A short peptide with alternating aromatic and basic residues, which is the arrangement that gives it both its membrane affinity and its ability to accumulate where it does. Molecular weight and exact composition are on the specification table.
The question researchers are asking
Cardiolipin is essential to how the inner membrane holds its shape, and that shape is what makes the electron transport chain work efficiently. When cardiolipin is disrupted, energy production falls off.
So the question is direct and rather elegant: if you could stabilise that lipid, would mitochondrial efficiency hold up better under stress? That is what the published work is investigating, and it is why SS-31 appears in research on tissues with the highest energy demands, heart and kidney among them.
Handling and solubility
Soluble in water. White lyophilised powder, sealed vial at minus twenty, aliquot once in solution.
What to check on your certificate
The name first, so you know which of the three you are looking at. Then the sequence and the mass confirmation, then the batch reference against the vial.
Regulatory position in the UK
Not a licensed medicine, supplied as a laboratory reagent for in vitro research.