1. What polynucleotides are
Polynucleotides are chains of nucleotides, the building blocks of DNA. The injectable products used in aesthetics contain highly purified fragments, most commonly extracted from salmon or trout, processed to remove protein and reduce the risk of an immune reaction. They are injected into the dermis in small deposits, in a technique that looks similar to a skin booster session.
The proposal is that these fragments act as a signal and a substrate: that they support fibroblast activity, moderate inflammation and improve the local environment in which skin repairs itself. That is a mechanistic claim about a process, not a claim about a visible outcome, and the distinction matters.
2. What the evidence actually looks like
There is published human research. It is generally small in scale, short in duration and often conducted or supported by parties with a commercial interest in the result. Outcomes are frequently assessed using photographic scales or instrument measures rather than outcomes patients would name themselves.
That is a description of an early evidence base, not a dismissal of one. Plenty of treatments now considered reliable looked exactly like this at the same stage. What it justifies is a particular posture: willingness to consider the treatment, unwillingness to accept it as established, and scepticism of any claim that presents it as proven.
If you want to check the shape of the evidence yourself, searching the treatment name on PubMed will show you how many human studies exist and how large they are, which is often more informative than reading any single one.
3. The claims made for it, sorted
The claims most consistently made are improved skin elasticity and hydration, reduced fine crepiness, improvement in the quality of thin skin around the eyes, and some benefit in scarring and in skin that has been damaged. Of those, the under eye and general skin quality claims are the ones the category is most often sold on.
Claims that go further deserve more resistance. Descriptions of the treatment as regenerating, rejuvenating or reversing ageing are marketing constructions. Nothing injected into skin reverses ageing. The plausible ceiling here is a modest improvement in the condition of the tissue, achieved gradually and requiring repetition.
4. Exosomes and the wider regenerative label
Polynucleotides sit inside a broader marketing category that also includes exosomes, growth factor preparations and various platelet derived treatments. These are not the same thing, and grouping them under one word does patients no favours.
Exosomes in particular raise a specific regulatory question in the UK, because products of that type intended for injection may fall under medicines or human tissue rules rather than device rules depending on their source and processing. A patient is not in a position to determine that, but a patient is entitled to ask the practitioner what the product is, what its regulatory status in the UK is, and to receive a clear answer rather than a description of the science.
5. Risk and downtime
The immediate profile is that of a multi injection technique: pinpoint bruising, swelling for a day or two, small raised deposits that settle, and tenderness. The fish origin of most products raises an obvious question about allergy, and a history of fish allergy should be declared and taken seriously.
Beyond that, the risks are those of any injectable: infection, hypersensitivity and, rarely, vascular events. Because the deposits are small and superficial, the volumising risks associated with contour fillers are lower, but nothing injected into a face is free of them.
The unknown is the long term. A category this young has not had time to produce a long follow up literature, and the sensible reading of "no long term problems reported" in an early category is that there has not yet been a long term.
Polynucleotide injectable, single session, full face
Product cost in this category is genuinely higher than for standard hyaluronic acid, which props up the bottom of the band. Above that, the spread is the usual one: who injects, how long the assessment takes, how many syringes and whether the eye area is included.
These are course treatments, typically three sessions. Price the course. A headline session price in a category that requires three of them is a marketing number.
An indicative editorial band, not a survey, not a quote and not a recommendation. How we build these bands.
6. Courses, maintenance and the real cost
These treatments are sold as courses, most often three sessions two to four weeks apart, then maintenance. That structure is intrinsic to the proposed mechanism rather than a commercial invention, but it does mean the advertised session price bears little relation to the cost of the outcome.
Before agreeing, ask for the total cost of the initial course, the recommended maintenance interval and the annual cost thereafter. Then decide whether an early stage treatment producing a modest gradual change is worth that annual figure to you. That is a legitimate answer either way, but it is a different question from the one the session price invites you to answer. Our guide to packages, courses and memberships covers how these structures are built.
7. What to ask
What exactly is the product, and what is its regulatory status in the UK for this use. How many sessions, at what total cost, with what maintenance. What specific change should I expect to see, and by when. How will we assess whether it worked, and what photographic record will exist. What is the plan if I see nothing at all after the full course.
That last question is the useful one. A practitioner who has thought about a category carefully will have an answer to it, and the answer will not be another course.