If you have been reading about epithalamin and want a single page that covers the useful parts, this is it: definitions, context, how it is studied, and the questions that come up repeatedly.
Last reviewed on 2025-10-27. Where a claim depends on a specific study, the study is described rather than over-claimed.
The compound is generally described as a synthetic analogue of a fragment isolated from a pineal gland extract. Researchers associated with the Saint Petersburg Institute of Bioregulation and Gerontology introduced it during the 1980s and 1990s while studying short peptides from animal tissue. The original extract, called epithalamin, is a heterogeneous mixture, whereas epitalon is a single defined sequence. That distinction matters because findings reported for the extract are not automatically findings about the pure tetrapeptide, and claims about broader biological effects remain a separate question from the chemical identity described here.
Residue composition is the property that most cleanly separates verified material from mislabelled samples. Alanine, glutamate, aspartate and glycine appear in that order from the N-terminus, and the two acidic residues sit in the middle of the chain. Because the peptide is short, it can be produced by solid-phase synthesis and characterised by mass spectrometry without ambiguity. Any reported sample whose measured mass departs substantially from 390 daltons is a different compound or a degraded mixture rather than epitalon.
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.
The peptide is a synthetic analogue of epithalamin, a preparation extracted from bovine pineal glands. Investigators sought a short, chemically defined molecule that would reproduce some of the endocrine and gerontological observations attributed to the glandular extract. Proposed mechanisms centre on induction of telomerase activity, an effect reported in cultured human somatic cells in the early 2000s, together with influences on melatonin secretion and neuroendocrine regulation. Those mechanisms remain incompletely characterised, and the reported telomerase response has not been consistently reproduced by independent groups working in comparable systems.
| Property | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Molecular formula | C14H22N4O9 | Derived from the four constituent residues |
| Molecular mass | About 390.35 Da | Monoisotopic value, confirmed by mass spectrometry |
| Residue sequence | Ala-Glu-Asp-Gly | Read from the N-terminus to the C-terminus |
| Common synonyms | Epithalon; AEDG | Both forms appear in reference catalogues |
| Net charge near neutral pH | Negative | Two acidic side chains give a low isoelectric point |
Several names circulate for the same molecule, including epitalon, epithalone, epithalamin tetrapeptide, and the sequence code AEDG. A CAS registry number, 307297-39-8, is commonly cited for it, though catalogue entries should be checked against supplier documentation because mislabelled records occur. In its usual form the peptide carries free amino and carboxyl termini and is neither glycosylated nor lipidated. Researchers distinguish the defined tetrapeptide from epithalamin itself, a crude pineal preparation containing many peptides that is not chemically characterised.
Material supplied for laboratory use is normally a lyophilised white to off-white powder that dissolves readily in water and in isotonic saline. Lyophilised cakes are hygroscopic and should be equilibrated to room temperature before opening to limit condensation on the solid. Solutions are typically prepared at milligram-per-millilitre concentrations and divided into single-use aliquots, because repeated freeze–thaw cycles degrade short peptides. Aqueous solutions are far less stable than the dry powder, and identity is usually verified by mass spectrometry alongside purity estimation from reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography.
Epitalon is a synthetic tetrapeptide whose sequence is alanine-glutamate-aspartate-glycine, written in single-letter code as AEDG. The four residues are joined by three peptide bonds, giving a linear backbone with no branching and no disulfide bridges. Its calculated molecular mass for the free form is approximately 390.3 daltons, a figure that rises when the compound is supplied as an acetate or trifluoroacetate salt. Because the chain is short, the molecule is defined entirely by its residue order rather than by any folded three-dimensional structure.
The compound is described in the literature as a derivative of epithalamin, a preparation obtained from bovine pineal tissue. Work on this peptide family was carried out mainly by a research group in Saint Petersburg beginning in the 1980s, and the substance was later registered for clinical use in Russia under the name Epitalon. Outside that region it is generally treated as a research chemical rather than an approved medicine. Statements about its biological activity rest on a relatively small number of studies, and independent replication remains limited.
== Nucleotides == The biosynthesis of nucleotides involves enzyme-catalyzed reactions that convert substrates into more complex products. Nucleotides are the building blocks of DNA and RNA. Nucleotides are composed of a five-membered ring formed from ribose sugar in RNA, and deoxyribose sugar in DNA; these sugars are linked to a purine or pyrimidine base with a glycosidic bond and a phosphate group at the 5' location of the sugar.
These reductions in metabolic rate and heart rate do not appear to decrease the bear's ability to heal injuries during hibernation. Their circadian rhythm stays intact during hibernation. This allows the bear to sense the changes in the day based on the ambient temperature caused by the sun's position in the sky. It has also been shown that ambient light exposure and low disturbance levels (that is to say, wild bears in ambient light conditions) directly correlate with their activity levels. The bear keeping track of the changing days allows it to awaken from hibernation at the appropriate time of year to conserve as much energy as possible. The hibernating bear does not display the same rate of muscle and bone atrophy relative to other nonhibernatory animals that are subject to long periods of inactivity due to ailment or old age. A hibernating bear only loses approximately half the muscular strength compared to that of a well-nourished, inactive human. The bear's bone mass does not change in geometry or mineral composition during hibernation, which implies that the bear's conservation of bone mass during hibernation is caused by a biological mechanism. During hibernation American black bears retain all excretory waste, leading to the development of a hardened mass of fecal material in the colon known as a fecal plug. Leptin is released into the bear's systems to suppress appetite. The retention of waste during hibernation (specifically in minerals such as calcium) may play a role in the bear's resistance to atrophy.
Agarose gels are made from the natural polysaccharide polymers extracted from seaweed. Agarose gels are easily cast and handled compared to other matrices because the gel setting is a physical rather than chemical change. Samples are also easily recovered. After the experiment is finished, the resulting gel can be stored in a plastic bag in a refrigerator. Agarose gels do not have a uniform pore size, but are optimal for electrophoresis of proteins that are larger than 200 kDa. Agarose gel electrophoresis can also be used for the separation of DNA fragments ranging from 50 base pair to several megabases (millions of bases), the largest of which require specialized apparatus. The distance between DNA bands of different lengths is influenced by the percent agarose in the gel, with higher percentages requiring longer run times, sometimes days. Instead high percentage agarose gels should be run with a pulsed field electrophoresis (PFE), or field inversion electrophoresis. "Most agarose gels are made with between 0.7% (good separation or resolution of large 5–10kb DNA fragments) and 2% (good resolution for small 0.2–1kb fragments) agarose dissolved in electrophoresis buffer. Up to 3% can be used for separating very tiny fragments but a vertical polyacrylamide gel is more appropriate in this case. Low percentage gels are very weak and may break when you try to lift them. High percentage gels are often brittle and do not set evenly. 1% gels are common for many applications."
== Arrest and conviction == Archerd was arrested on July 27, 1967, in Los Angeles for a threefold murder. He was convicted of killing the following: Zella Archerd, his fourth wife (July 25, 1956, two months after their wedding); Burney Archerd, his nephew (September 2, 1961, in Long Beach); and Mary Brinker Post, his seventh wife (November 3, 1966). Others suspected to be victims of Archerd are: William Jones Jr. (October 12, 1947, in Fontana), Juanita Plum Archerd, his fifth wife (March 13, 1958, in Las Vegas); and Frank Stewart (March 17, 1960). All exhibited symptoms of hypoglycemia. Archerd was sentenced to death on March 6, 1968, for three of the murder cases. The medical personnel, law enforcement, and prosecution team were unaware of the availability of an accurate and sensitive assay for blood insulin levels developed years earlier by Rosalyn Yalow in collaboration with Solomon Berson working at the Bronx Veterans Administration Hospital. Instead, they presented some unproven laboratory evidence that, in retrospect, should not have been accepted in court. In December 1970, the death sentence was upheld by the California Supreme Court. In 1972, the sentence was instead changed to life imprisonment after a ruling by the United States Supreme Court. Archerd died of pneumonia in 1977 at the age of 65.
== Biography == Yourcenar was born in Brussels, Belgium, as Marguerite Antoinette Jeanne Marie Ghislaine Cleenewerck de Crayencour, to Michel Cleenewerck de Crayencour and Fernande de Cartier de Marchienne. Her father was of French bourgeois descent, originating from French Flanders, and a wealthy landowner. Her mother, of Belgian nobility, died ten days after Marguerite's birth. She grew up in the home of her paternal grandmother, and adopted the surname Yourcenar as a pen name; in 1947, she also took it as her legal surname. Yourcenar's first novel, Alexis, was published in 1929. She translated Virginia Woolf's The Waves over a ten-month period in 1937. In 1939, her partner at the time, the literary scholar and Kansas City native Grace Frick, invited Yourcenar to the United States to escape the outbreak of World War II in Europe. She lectured in comparative literature in New York City and Sarah Lawrence College. Yourcenar and Frick became lovers in 1937 and remained together until Frick's death in 1979. After ten years spent in Hartford, Connecticut, they bought a house in Northeast Harbor, Maine, on Mount Desert Island, where they lived for decades. They are buried next to each other at Brookside Cemetery, Somesville, Mount Desert, Maine. Yourcenar's last companion was Jerry Wilson, with whom she had a tormented relationship; he died of AIDS in 1986. In 1951, Yourcenar published, in France, the novel Memoirs of Hadrian, which she had been writing on and off for a decade. The novel was an immediate success and met with critical acclaim.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
== Structure == Several structures of glyoxalase I have been solved. Four structures of the human form have been published, with PDB accession codes PDB: 1BH5, PDB: 1FRO, PDB: 1QIN, and PDB: 1QIP. Five structures of the Escherichia coli form have been published, with accession codes PDB: 1FA5, PDB: 1FA6, PDB: 1FA7, PDB: 1FA8, and PDB: 1F9Z. Finally, one structure of the trypanothione-specific version from Leishmania major has been solved, PDB: 2C21. In all these cases, the quaternary structure of the biological unit is a domain-swapped dimer, in which the active site and the 8-stranded beta sheet secondary structure is formed from both subunits. However, in yeast such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the two subunits have fused into a single monomer of double size, through gene duplication. Each half of the structural dimer is a sandwich of 3-4 alpha helices on both sides of an 8-stranded antiparallel beta sheet; the dimer interface is largely composed of the face-to-face meeting of the two beta sheets. The tertiary and quaternary structures of glyoxalase I is similar to those of several other types of proteins. For example, glyoxalase I resembles several proteins that allow bacteria to resist antibiotics such as fosfomycin, bleomycin and mitomycin. Likewise, the unrelated enzymes methylmalonyl-CoA epimerase, 3-demethylubiquinone-9 3-O-methyltransferase and numerous dioxygenases such as biphenyl-2,3-diol 1,2-dioxygenase, catechol 2,3-dioxygenase, 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetate 2,3-dioxygenase and 4-hydroxyphenylpyruvate dioxygenase all resemble glyoxalase I in structure.
Serine proteases - using a serine alcohol Cysteine proteases - using a cysteine thiol Threonine proteases - using a threonine secondary alcohol Aspartic proteases - using an aspartate carboxylic acid Glutamic proteases - using a glutamate carboxylic acid Metalloproteases - using a metal, usually zinc Asparagine peptide lyases - using an asparagine to perform an elimination reaction (not requiring water) Proteases were first grouped into 84 families according to their evolutionary relationship in 1993, and classified under four catalytic types: serine, cysteine, aspartic, and metallo proteases. The threonine and glutamic proteases were not described until 1995 and 2004 respectively. The mechanism used to cleave a peptide bond involves making an amino acid residue that has the cysteine and threonine (proteases) or a water molecule (aspartic, glutamic and metalloproteases) nucleophilic so that it can attack the peptide carbonyl group. One way to make a nucleophile is by a catalytic triad, where a histidine residue is used to activate serine, cysteine, or threonine as a nucleophile. This is not an evolutionary grouping, however, as the nucleophile types have evolved convergently in different superfamilies, and some superfamilies show divergent evolution to multiple different nucleophiles. Metalloproteases, aspartic, and glutamic proteases utilize their active site residues to activate a water molecule, which then attacks the scissile bond.
Under Omani Arabs, Zanzibar became East Africa's main slave port, with as many as 50,000 African slaves passing through every year during the 19th century. Some historians estimate that between 11 and 18 million African slaves crossed the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and Sahara Desert from 650 to 1900 AD. Eduard Rüppell described the losses of Nuba slaves from Southern sudan being transported on foot to Egypt: "after the Daftardar bey's 1822 campaign in the southern Nuba mountains, nearly 40,000 slaves were captured. However, through bad treatment, disease and desert travel barely 5,000 made it to Egypt." W.A. Veenhoven wrote: "The German doctor, Gustav Nachtigal, an eye-witness, believed that for every slave who arrived at a market three or four died on the way ... Keltie (The Partition of Africa, London, 1920) believes that for every slave the Arabs brought to the coast at least six died on the way or during the slavers' raid. Livingstone puts the figure as high as ten to one." Systems of servitude and slavery were common in parts of Africa, as they were in much of the ancient world. In many African societies where slavery was prevalent, the slaves were not treated as chattel slaves and were given certain rights in a system similar to indentured servitude elsewhere in the world. The forms of slavery in Africa were closely related to kinship structures. In many African communities, where land could not be owned, enslavement of individuals was used as a means to increase the influence a person had and expand connections.
== Cut flowers and cut greens == Plants used for cut flowers and cut greens are derived from many plant species and diverse plant families. Cut flower arrangements can include cut stems from annual plants, flower bulbs or herbaceous perennials, cut stems of evergreens or colored leaves, flowers from landscape shrubs, flowers that have been dried or preserved, fruit on tree branches, dried uniquely shaped fruit or stems from plants, unique dried weeds (sometimes painted to add a distinctive touch), etc. These plants come from diverse natural habitats, so different environmental conditions are used to grow them. The cut flower plants that were first used in the development of the floral industry in northern Europe were those adapted to the cool temperatures that occur there. On the other hand, the warmer temperatures of Southeast Asia, led to the development of different plants adapted to those conditions. The floral industry was primarily local, wherever in the world, until the 1950s. The advent and development of international trade and transportation changed the cut flower segment of the floral industry. Cut flowers could be grown cheaply in a cool or warm region of the world and shipped to markets in population centers anywhere. This started in the cool coastal regions of California but quickly expanded into the mountains of Colombia, Ecuador, Kenya, Ethiopia, China, Mexico, etc., and to distinctive environments in Indonesia, South Africa, Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, etc.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
Having broadcast on talkSPORT from 2006 to 2012, Galloway began to broadcast on talkRADIO (which launched in March 2016 as a sister station to Talksport) in June 2016. Amongst his many monologues, he said that if Scotland were to leave the UK and join the EU "it would not be a good thing for his fellow countrymen", and has condemned the BBC as a "national disgrace". In June 2019, after Liverpool Football Club had defeated Tottenham Hotspur Football Club in the Champions League final, Galloway congratulated the people of Liverpool and tweeted "No #Israël [sic] flags on the Cup!". He said that this referred to a number of Tottenham fans who were flying the flag of Israel in the crowd, showing "an affiliation to a 'racist state'". Tottenham Hotspur accused Galloway of "blatant anti-Semitism" and talkRADIO sacked him saying the broadcaster "does not tolerate anti-Semitic views".
=== P53 and p73 === p53 and p73 are tumor suppressor proteins and their degradation is tightly regulated by ubiquitination. Recently it was shown that their degradation can also occur via an ubiquitin-independent process; NQO1 blocks p53 and p73 degradation in the presence of NADH and protects them from 20S proteasomal degradation. This protein-protein interaction between p53 and NQO1 was non-catalytic.
== List legend == Each group of radionuclides, starting with the longest-lived primordial radionuclides, is sorted by decreasing half-life, but the tables are sortable by other columns. All columns sort by usual lexicographical order; in the case of the nuclide column this gives order on the mass number A.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
It is a four-amino-acid peptide built from alanine, glutamate, aspartate and glycine in that order. Its formula is C14H22N4O9, and it is made by chemical synthesis rather than extracted from tissue. The synthetic peptide is a single defined molecule, unlike the pineal extracts it is often compared with.
No. The two spellings refer to the same tetrapeptide, and the difference reflects transliteration from Russian. Laboratories and catalogues use both forms interchangeably. The material is also indexed as AEDG, taken from the one-letter codes of its residues.
Epithalamin is a mixed preparation derived from animal pineal tissue and contains many peptides. Epitalon is one synthetic sequence chosen for study from that broader mixture. Statements about one do not transfer directly to the other.
Epitalon is a synthetic four-amino-acid peptide with the sequence alanine–glutamate–aspartate–glycine, also written AEDG. It was developed in Russian gerontology research and is studied for proposed effects on telomerase, melatonin regulation, and neuroendocrine function. It is not an approved pharmaceutical in the United States or the European Union.