Cytoprotection is a research framework introduced by André Robert and colleagues in the late 1970s to describe molecules that protect gastric mucosa (and later, other tissues) from injury without necessarily suppressing acid secretion or acting through a defined receptor. The related concept of adaptive cytoprotection extends the idea to pre-exposure with a mild injurious stimulus that raises resilience to a subsequent, stronger insult.
Cytoprotection is not itself a receptor or a pathway — it is a phenotypic framework for describing convergent protective effects across tissues that may be driven by several molecular mechanisms.
Sikirić and colleagues situate BPC-157 within this framework and describe it as an "organoprotector" with reported effects across gastrointestinal, vascular, musculoskeletal and neural preclinical models.