A practical reference on research chemical: what it is, how it behaves, what the literature reports, and where the honest uncertainties sit.
This page was last updated on 2025-10-11 and is reviewed periodically as new material appears.
The published literature is dominated by a small number of research groups, much of it in Russian-language journals, and independent replication outside those groups is limited. Studies are typically small, use cultured cells or rodent models, and report endpoints that differ between papers, which makes comparison difficult. Large randomised human trials have not appeared in the indexed literature. Questions about absorption, distribution and clearance are therefore still treated as open in reviews that mention the compound.
Epitalon is a synthetic tetrapeptide with the sequence alanine–glutamate–aspartate–glycine, commonly abbreviated AEDG. Its design traces to epithalamin, a peptide fraction prepared from bovine pineal gland extracts that researchers in Saint Petersburg began investigating in the 1970s. The compound has a molecular formula of C14H22N4O9 and a nominal molecular mass near 390 daltons. It holds no approved drug status in the United States or the European Union, and material sold under this name is generally offered as a research chemical rather than a finished pharmaceutical product.
Solubility is high in water, phosphate-buffered saline and normal saline, a pattern that follows from the two acidic residues in the chain. The peptide dissolves poorly in non-polar solvents such as hexane or chloroform. Stock solutions are often prepared in water first and then diluted into the buffer of interest. Because the molecule is small and hydrophilic, filtration through a low-protein-binding membrane is usually straightforward, and visible particulates are uncommon in freshly made solutions.
Identity and purity are established with reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry. The chromatogram shows the main peak and any truncated or oxidised by-products, while the mass spectrum confirms the expected 390 dalton mass. Amino acid analysis can corroborate composition when a sample's origin is uncertain. Counterion content, particularly residual trifluoroacetate from purification, is frequently reported alongside purity because it shifts the net mass of the solid.
| Property | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Molecular formula | C14H22N4O9 | Synthetic tetrapeptide, four residues |
| Nominal mass | Approximately 390 Da | Free peptide; salt forms differ |
| Appearance | White to off-white powder | Commonly supplied lyophilised |
| Solubility class | Freely soluble in water | Also dissolves in aqueous buffer |
| Typical storage | −20 °C, desiccated | Cold packs used during transport |
Published work on this compound consists mainly of in vitro experiments, animal studies, and small clinical investigations, a substantial share of which appeared in Russian-language journals. Sample sizes are generally small, control conditions differ between studies, and several endpoints rely on markers whose clinical meaning is itself debated. Reviews of the longevity field treat the peptide as an early example of telomerase-directed research rather than an established intervention. Regulatory treatment varies by country: some jurisdictions place it under prescription controls, others treat it as a laboratory material, and importation may be restricted regardless of local status.
Epitalon is a synthetic tetrapeptide whose sequence is alanine–glutamate–aspartate–glycine, commonly abbreviated AEDG. It was developed in Russia during the 1980s and 1990s by investigators associated with the St. Petersburg Institute of Bioregulation and Gerontology, who studied short peptides as regulators of gene expression and tissue function. The alternative spelling epithalon appears interchangeably in the literature, and the two names refer to the same molecule. Outside Russia it is encountered chiefly as a research chemical rather than a licensed medicine, and it holds no approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration or the European Medicines Agency.
Storage and handling follow conventional peptide practice. Lyophilized epitalon is typically kept refrigerated or frozen, protected from moisture and light, and allowed to equilibrate to room temperature before opening to avoid condensation. Once dissolved, aqueous solutions are usually stored cold and used within a short period, since dilute peptide solutions can support microbial growth and may slowly degrade. The absence of cysteine and methionine reduces, but does not eliminate, oxidation concerns during long-term storage.
Regulatory status varies by country and is not harmonized. Epitalon is not an approved drug in major Western jurisdictions. In some countries it is sold as a research chemical, and in others it has appeared in products marketed for other categories. This inconsistent status means that purity, labeling accuracy, and documentation differ widely between suppliers, and verification of identity and purity through independent analysis is the usual way buyers assess a given lot.
The peptide emerged from research carried out in Saint Petersburg from the late 1980s onward, where investigators searched for shorter active fragments of a pineal preparation known as epithalamin. The name epitalon was chosen to reflect that parent extract. Early reports described effects on neuroendocrine markers and on the lifespan of laboratory animals. Much of that work appeared in Russian-language journals, with English translations following later, which affects how readily the original protocols can be assessed by outside groups.
Published studies on epitalon are dominated by a small number of research groups, and independent replication in other laboratories remains limited. Proposed mechanisms include activation of telomerase and modulation of melatonin rhythms, but the evidence for either rests mainly on cell cultures and animal models. Whether the peptide produces comparable effects in humans is an open question, and the absence of large controlled trials means the literature is best read as exploratory rather than settled.
Epitalon is a synthetic four-amino-acid peptide with the sequence alanine-glutamate-aspartate-glycine, commonly abbreviated AEDG. Its molecular formula is C14H22N4O9, and its calculated molar mass is approximately 390.35 grams per mole. The compound is a short fragment related to a peptide fraction isolated from bovine pineal gland extracts, and it is normally supplied as a lyophilised powder intended for laboratory research. It is not a registered pharmaceutical product in most countries.
Storage practice centres on limiting moisture, oxygen, and repeated temperature cycling. Freeze-dried powder is generally held desiccated at minus twenty degrees Celsius or colder and protected from light. Reconstituted solutions are markedly less stable, and the aspartate-glycine junction is prone to succinimide formation at neutral to mildly alkaline pH. Portioning material into single-use aliquots reduces degradation compared with repeated freeze-thaw cycles. Stability data specific to this tetrapeptide remain scarce, so most handling guidance is extrapolated from general peptide chemistry rather than measured directly.
Documentation accompanying research peptides usually includes a certificate of analysis listing the batch number, purity figure, and test methods applied. Buyers comparing suppliers should check whether the reported purity refers to chromatographic area or to a mass-balance calculation, because the two are not equivalent. Counter-ion content, residual solvents, and water content are sometimes omitted from such certificates even though they affect the actual peptide mass present. Independent verification through a second laboratory is the most direct way to confirm that a supplied material matches its label.
In such reactions, which are more useful for alkyl iodides and bromides, the degree of alkylation is difficult to control such that one obtains mixtures of primary, secondary, and tertiary amines, as well as quaternary ammonium salts. Selectivity can be improved via the Delépine reaction, although this is rarely employed on an industrial scale. Selectivity is also assured in the Gabriel synthesis, which involves organohalide reacting with potassium phthalimide. Aryl halides are much less reactive toward amines and for that reason are more controllable. A popular way to prepare aryl amines is the Buchwald-Hartwig reaction.
== Safety == Cyclodextrins are of wide interest in part because they appear nontoxic in animal studies. The LD50 (oral, rats) is on the order of grams per kilogram. Nevertheless, attempts to use β-cyclodextrin for the prevention of atherosclerosis, age-related lipofuscin accumulation and obesity encounter an obstacle in the form of damage to the auditory nerve and nephrotoxic effect.
Plant morphology "represents a study of the development, form, and structure of plants, and, by implication, an attempt to interpret these on the basis of similarity of plan and origin". There are four major areas of investigation in plant morphology, and each overlaps with another field of the biological sciences. First of all, morphology is comparative, meaning that the morphologist examines structures in many different plants of the same or different species, then draws comparisons and formulates ideas about similarities. When structures in different species are believed to exist and develop as a result of common, inherited genetic pathways, those structures are termed homologous. For example, the leaves of pine, oak, and cabbage all look very different, but share certain basic structures and arrangement of parts. The homology of leaves is an easy conclusion to make. The plant morphologist goes further, and discovers that the spines of cactus also share the same basic structure and development as leaves in other plants, and therefore cactus spines are homologous to leaves as well. This aspect of plant morphology overlaps with the study of plant evolution and paleobotany. Secondly, plant morphology observes both the vegetative (somatic) structures of plants, as well as the reproductive structures. The vegetative structures of vascular plants includes the study of the shoot system, composed of stems and leaves, as well as the root system.
=== Analogues === Analogues of 4-HO-MET include psilocin (4-HO-DMT), 4-HO-DET (ethocin), 4-HO-MiPT (miprocin), 4-HO-DPT (deprocin), 4-HO-MPT (meprocin), 4-HO-DALT (dalocin), and 4-HO-MALT (malocin), among others. 4-AcO-MET (metacetin) and 4-PrO-MET are ester prodrugs of 4-HO-MET. Other analogues of 4-HO-MET include methylethyltryptamine (MET), 5-HO-MET, and 5-MeO-MET.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
==== Still-Gennari alkenation ==== The Horner-Wadsworth-Emmons reaction is a widely used olefination reaction in which a phosphonate-stabilized carbanion reacts with an aldehyde or ketone to form an alkene. In the standard HWE reaction, the phosphonate ester contains alkoxy substituents (typically methoxy or ethoxy), producing an E-alkene as the major product. In 1983, Still and Gennari reported that simply substituting the more electron-withdrawing 2,2,2-trifluoroethoxy groups on the phosphonate component reversed the stereoselectivity to produce predominantly Z-alkenes. The use of a non-coordinating counterion was also found to be critical for high levels of Z-selectivity; this is typically accomplished by using a base with a potassium counterion in the presence of 18-crown-6. Taken together, this protocol is known as the Still-Gennari modification of the Horner-Wadsworth-Emmons reaction or, alternatively, as the Still-Gennari olefination.
For services to People with Autism and their Families in Oxfordshire. Elizabeth Craig Ovens. Director, McCaskies Butchers. For services to Retail and to the Economy in Scotland. Alfred Oluwafemi Oyekoya. Director, Black Asian Minority Ethnic Mental Health Support. For services to Minority Ethnic Communities in Wales. Caroline Rebecca Paige. For services to Armed Forces Personnel and Veterans. The Reverend Canon Dr. Crispin Alexander Pailing. Member, Merseyside Resilience Forum and Safety Advisory Group. For services to the community in Liverpool, Merseyside. Blair Parham. Director of Music and Principal Conductor, Scottish Fiddle Orchestra. For services to Scottish Music. Satish Manilal Parmar. Senior Policy Adviser, Department for Work and Pensions. For Public Service. Carys Parry. Voluntary Party Manager, Conservative Party. For Political Service. Imran Adam Patel. For services to the community in Blackburn, Lancashire. Wolodymyr Pawluk. Chair, London Branch, Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain and Member, National Executive Committee, Ukrainian Youth Association. For services to the Ukrainian Community. Ewan Benjamin Payne. Team UK Gold Medal Winner, WorldSkills UK. For services to Further Education. Catherine Penny. For services to Plant Heritage and to the community in North Preston, Lancashire. Professor Yvonne Perrie. Professor of Drug Delivery and Head, Institute for Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences. For services to Pharmaceutical Innovation and Regulation. Timothy Foster Pick.
JEOL, Ltd. (日本電子, Nihon Denshi Kabushiki-kaisha; Nihon meaning Japan and Denshi meaning electron) is a major developer and manufacturer of electron microscopes and other scientific instruments, industrial equipment and medical equipment. Its headquarters are in Tokyo, Japan, with 25 domestic and foreign subsidiaries and associated companies as of 2014. It is listed in the top ten businesses worldwide for analytical laboratory instrument manufacturing. It has been included in the Activest Lux Nanotech Mutual Fund and the WestLB Nanotech Fund.
=== Italy === Since the Fleischmann and Pons announcement, the Italian national agency for new technologies, energy and sustainable economic development (ENEA) has funded Franco Scaramuzzi's research into whether excess heat can be measured from metals loaded with deuterium gas. Such research is distributed across ENEA departments, CNR laboratories, INFN, universities, and industrial laboratories in Italy, where the group continues to try to achieve reliable reproducibility (i.e. getting the phenomenon to happen in every cell, and inside a certain frame of time). In 2006–2007, the ENEA started a research program which claimed to have found excess power of up to 500 percent, and in 2009, ENEA hosted the 15th cold fusion conference.
=== Finland === During peacetime, when Finnish Defence Forces conscripts are not provided with meals cooked either in garrisons or attached field kitchens, they are provided with rations (colloquially known as sissi rations) packed in a clear plastic bag. Several different menus exist, however all include foil-packed crispbread, coffee and tea, sugar, chocolate, small tins of beef or pork, chewing gum, dry porridge, energy drink powder, etc. Soups and porridges that are meant to be mixed with water and cooked are usually prepared in Trangia-type portable stoves that are shared by the pair in a fire and maneuver team, or in individual mess kits.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
No. Epithalamin is a heterogeneous peptide fraction obtained from pineal gland extract and contains many components. Epitalon is a single synthetic tetrapeptide with the sequence Ala-Glu-Asp-Gly. Researchers synthesised the shorter peptide while attempting to identify active sequences within the extract.
No endogenous peptide with this exact sequence has been described as a circulating hormone or signalling molecule. The tetrapeptide was designed as a synthetic analogue based on fragments observed in pineal preparations. Any activity discussed in the literature therefore refers to administered material rather than to a natural pool of the compound.
It is not an approved medicine in major jurisdictions and does not appear in the major pharmacopoeias. Material is usually distributed as a research chemical or laboratory reagent. Such labelling places handling responsibility on the purchaser and does not indicate that a regulatory body has reviewed the substance.
Sealed lyophilised powder is normally kept at minus twenty degrees Celsius or below, away from light and moisture. Vials are allowed to reach room temperature before opening to limit condensation. Repeated warming and cooling of the same vial is discouraged.