Copper Chelation and Delivery At the most fundamental level, GHK functions as a copper chelator and delivery system - the tripeptide binds Cu with exceptionally high affinity (binding constant approximately 10 M, among the highest known for biological copper chelators), forming a square planar coordination complex where the copper ion is coordinated by the nitrogen atoms of the terminal amino group, the two peptide bonds, and the imidazole nitrogen of histidine
Desale K, Kuche K, Jain S
Advances in Neurobiology, 13, 197-232
Most existing investigations tend to focus on either small peptides or larger bioactive peptides independently, resulting in limited data on their relative efficacy, mechanistic differences, and potential synergistic applications within the same experimental frameworks
The copper ion is released gradually as the peptide is metabolized, providing sustained signaling