Palmitoyl Tripeptide-1

A synthetic lipopeptide pairing the collagen-derived matrikine GHK with a palmitic-acid chain for skin penetration, used in topical cosmetics and best known as the collagen-signaling half of the Matrixyl 3000 blend.

Also referenced as: Pal-GHK, Palmitoyl-GHK, Pal-Gly-His-Lys, Palmitoyl Oligopeptide, Biopeptide CL

Also appears in: Longevity

What is Palmitoyl Tripeptide-1?

Palmitoyl tripeptide-1 is a synthetic lipopeptide: the tripeptide GHK (glycyl-L-histidyl-L-lysine) with a 16-carbon palmitic-acid chain attached to its N-terminus. GHK itself is a naturally occurring “matrikine” — a signal fragment whose sequence appears in the alpha-2 chain of type I collagen and other matrix proteins — and the palmitoyl tail exists purely to make the hydrophilic tripeptide lipophilic enough to partition into skin. It reaches the research-peptide market mainly through cosmetics: originally sold by Sederma under the name Biopeptide CL, it is today best known as one of the two peptides in the Matrixyl 3000 blend (alongside palmitoyl tetrapeptide-7), and it also appears as a standalone raw material and in multi-peptide topical serums. It is not the same substance as GHK-Cu, the copper complex of the same tripeptide, which is profiled separately.

How it works

• The parent sequence GHK is a matrikine — a peptide fragment released when extracellular-matrix proteins are broken down, which nearby cells read as a remodeling signal and answer with new matrix synthesis (Maquart et al., Crit Rev Oncol Hematol, 2004;49(3):199-202).
• The GHK motif’s collagen evidence base is old and direct: GHK was first isolated from human serum in 1973 (Pickart & Thaler, Nature New Biol, 1973;243:85-87), and the tripeptide-copper complex was later shown to stimulate collagen synthesis in cultured human fibroblasts (Maquart et al., FEBS Lett, 1988;238(2):343-346). Gene-profiling work — done on GHK and its copper complex, not the palmitoylated form — attributes to the tripeptide a broad regenerative expression signature, including matrix-synthesis and remodeling genes (Pickart & Margolina, Int J Mol Sci, 2018;19(7)).
• The palmitoyl modification is a delivery strategy, not a new mechanism: acylation raises lipophilicity so the peptide can cross the stratum corneum, with the expectation that endogenous skin enzymes cleave the amide-linked fatty chain and liberate GHK at the target. How efficiently that happens in practice is one of the open questions in the topical-GHK literature (Mortazavi et al., BioImpacts, 2025).
• In finished cosmetics the peptide is present at trace levels — low enough that policing anti-wrinkle formulas takes dedicated LC-MS/MS methods; the published method assayed the related Pal-KTTKS in creams with Pal-GHK serving as the internal standard (Chirita et al., Anal Chim Acta, 2009;641(1-2):95-100) — so the proposed action is signal amplification in skin, not bulk delivery of material.

Research status

There are no studies registered on ClinicalTrials.gov for palmitoyl tripeptide-1, Pal-GHK, or Matrixyl (searched August 2026). No drug-development program exists; the compound has only ever been a cosmetic ingredient.

The human evidence is cosmetic-industry evidence, almost entirely for the Matrixyl 3000 blend rather than the isolated ingredient. The widely quoted wrinkle-reduction percentages for Matrixyl 3000 come from the manufacturer’s own profilometry studies (twice-daily application for two months), published in industry dossiers and conference material rather than indexed, peer-reviewed journals — treat those figures as marketing-grade until independently replicated. The closest peer-reviewed human data is Li et al., J Cosmet Dermatol, 2023;22(12):3340-3346: a 28-day, 32-subject instrumental study of a multi-peptide eye serum whose formula includes the Matrixyl 3000 peptides, reporting significant decreases in wrinkle number, depth, and volume with no adverse reactions — but as a multi-ingredient product study with no vehicle-controlled isolation of Pal-GHK, it cannot attribute the effect to this peptide.

Mechanistically, most of what is claimed for palmitoyl tripeptide-1 is extrapolated from studies of unmodified GHK or GHK-Cu; a 2025 review of topical GHK concludes the collagen-signaling rationale is sound but that percutaneous delivery and protease stability remain the unresolved links in the chain (Mortazavi et al., BioImpacts, 2025). Outside cosmetics, Pal-GHK has appeared as a building block in early preclinical work — for example, an EGCG-biotin-Pal-GHK composition studied in stress-induced alopecia models via TGF-beta and BMP pathways (Zheng et al., Eur J Pharmacol, 2026) — but this is cell and animal work only. There are no human trials of the isolated ingredient.

Common dosage forms

Palmitoyl tripeptide-1 is a topical-only compound in practice. It is sold as raw powder by cosmetic-ingredient and research suppliers, as pre-diluted topical solutions, and — most commonly — already blended into serums and creams, usually as part of a Matrixyl 3000-type pairing with palmitoyl tetrapeptide-7, where the actual peptide content of the finished product is in the parts-per-million range. It is not sold or studied as an injectable vial format the way metabolic or recovery peptides are.

Key considerations

• Regulatory status: Palmitoyl tripeptide-1 is a cosmetic ingredient, not an approved drug — it has never been through FDA drug review, and cosmetic ingredients are not pre-approved by the FDA. It is listed in the EU cosmetic-ingredient inventory under its INCI name.
• Naming confusion is the main trap: This is not GHK-Cu (the copper-peptide complex, a different substance with its own profile) and not plain GHK — the palmitoyl chain is a skin-penetration modification of the same tripeptide signal. Matrixyl 3000 is a blend of this peptide with palmitoyl tetrapeptide-7; Matrixyl proper is a different molecule entirely (palmitoyl pentapeptide-4, Pal-KTTKS), as is Matrixyl Synthe’6 (palmitoyl tripeptide-38). Older ingredient labels list the same compound as “palmitoyl oligopeptide” or under the legacy trade name Biopeptide CL.
• Evidence gap: There is essentially no single-ingredient human data. The efficacy record consists of manufacturer studies of the two-peptide blend and multi-ingredient product studies, with no registered clinical trials and limited independent replication.
• Delivery is unresolved: Palmitoylation demonstrably improves the physicochemical case for skin penetration, but how much intact peptide survives skin proteases and reaches dermal fibroblasts from a ppm-level topical dose remains an open question in the peer-reviewed literature.
• Safety picture: Cosmetic studies report good tolerability at use concentrations, with low irritation rates. There is essentially no data on non-topical routes. One historical footnote from the parent-compound literature: the original 1973 isolation work found GHK stimulated growth of neoplastic liver cells in culture alongside its survival effect on normal cells — an in-vitro observation from the discovery era, not a clinical signal, but part of why the GHK family’s growth-signaling biology is discussed carefully.