What this means
Researchers compared 30 young men who were athletes, active, or inactive. Men with higher fitness tended to have higher levels of this blood marker.
Plain-English summary written by an AI model from the abstract. The original is below.
- Who it was tested in
- 30 healthy young males aged 18 to 25
- Kind of research
- A study
The science
- Original title
- Associations of Serum MOTS-c with Exercise Capacity and Antioxidant Markers in Young Males: A Cross-Sectional Study.
- Authors
- Zhang Z, Zhang X, Wang C et al.
- Journal
- Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland)
- Published
- Oct 27, 2026
- Study type
- Study
- PMID
- 42939841 ↗
Abstract
Mitochondrial-derived peptide MOTS-c is an exercise-responsive mitokine, yet its associations with exercise capacity and antioxidant markers remain unclear. This cross-sectional study examined serum MOTS-c across three stratified groups of 30 healthy young males aged 18 to 25 years: elite track and field athletes (n = 10), recreationally active individuals (n = 10), and sedentary controls (n = 10). Measurements included serum MOTS-c, SOD, post-exercise MDA, VO2max, forced vital capacity, vertical jump height, handgrip strength, back muscle endurance, and post-fatigue back muscle force. Serum MOTS-c increased progressively across groups (athletes: 507.51 ± 67.42 pg/mL; active: 440.32 ± 32.83 pg/mL; sedentary: 319.31 ± 99.07 pg/mL; p < 0.001; Hedges' g = 2.13 for athlete vs. sedentary comparison). Serum MOTS-c was strongly correlated with absolute VO2max (r = 0.892), SOD (r = 0.847), post-exercise MDA (r = -0.910), back muscle endurance (r = 0.725), and post-fatigue back muscle force (r = 0.812) (all p < 0.001). In exploratory hierarchical regression, post-exercise MDA remained significantly associated with serum MOTS-c after adjustment for VO2max, whereas SOD was not independently associated. Handgrip strength showed no significant correlation with MOTS-c (r = 0.315, p = 0.090). These findings suggest that serum MOTS-c is associated with exercise capacity and circulating antioxidant markers in young males, although the cross-sectional design precludes causal inference.
Zhang Z, Zhang X, Wang C et al. Associations of Serum MOTS-c with Exercise Capacity and Antioxidant Markers in Young Males: A Cross-Sectional Study. Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland). 2026. doi:10.3390/antiox15101267. PMID: 42939841. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42939841/
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