Abstract

An excess of repeated contraction of the muscles involved in facial expressions results in the appearance of fine lines known as expression wrinkles. Neurotransmission that precedes contraction has been widely studied both in the pre-synaptic neuron and its effects on the post-synaptic muscle. Botulinum toxin treatments have lived together with cosmetic ingredients acting in the pre-synaptic or the post-synaptic pathways to relax muscle contraction and improve the fine lines. Here, we present a peptide, born from in silico design, able to work on both the pre- and post-synaptic pathways and on a new protein in the Cosmetics field Munc18-1. Munapsys™ efficacy was tested in vivo against a combination of benchmarks covering both pathways. The peptide demonstrated similar or even better results at a lower concentration.