Epitalon 10 mg

Epitalon is a synthetic tetrapeptide with the sequence Ala-Glu-Asp-Gly, commonly abbreviated AEDG. The molecular formula is C14H22N4O9, the average mass is 390.35 g/mol and the calculated monoisotopic mass is 390.139 (PubChem CID 219042; InChIKey HGHOBRRUMWJWCU-FXQIFTODSA-N). The molecule carries a free N-terminal alanine amine and three free carboxyl groups: the glutamate side chain, the aspartate side chain, and the C-terminal glycine. That arrangement leaves it anionic at neutral pH and water-soluble. All three stereocentres are L, and the glutamate is joined through its alpha-carboxyl rather than the side chain. There is no disulfide bridge, no cyclisation and no lipid or PEG conjugation, so the peptide is assembled by routine solid-phase synthesis and is short enough to be sequenced directly by tandem mass spectrometry.

The peptide was designed at the St Petersburg Institute of Bioregulation and Gerontology, where Vladimir Khavinson's group built it from the amino-acid composition of Epithalamin, a peptide preparation extracted from bovine pineal gland. Epitalon is therefore a defined four-residue peptide derived from an undefined tissue extract, and the two materials are not interchangeable. Older literature written about "epithalamin" describes the bovine extract; papers on "Epitalon", "Epithalon", "Epithalone" or "AEDG peptide" describe the synthetic tetrapeptide. The distinction matters when reading the record, because a substantial share of the human data attributed to this compound in secondary sources was generated with the extract rather than with AEDG.

The registry number for the synthetic tetrapeptide is CAS 307297-39-8 and the FDA UNII is O65P17785G; both describe the free peptide, with no counterion in the registered structure. PubChem also carries 64082-79-7 in its CAS section for the same record, a number indexed in ChemIDplus under the name Epithalamin, the bovine pineal extract. Databases and vendor catalogues do not agree on which material that second number properly belongs to, so a listing quoting it should not be assumed to describe the defined tetrapeptide. Supplied here as a white lyophilised powder specified at >=99% purity, with the certificate of analysis as the controlling record for peptide content, purity and counterion. A 2025 review in International Journal of Molecular Sciences (Araj et al.) observes that, set against the volume of biological work on this peptide, physico-chemical and structural investigation of the molecule itself remains quite limited.

The in-vitro work cited most often for this compound concerns telomerase. Khavinson, Bondarev and Butyugov (Bulletin of Experimental Biology and Medicine, 2003) added the peptide to telomerase-negative human fetal fibroblast cultures and reported induced expression of the telomerase catalytic subunit, measurable enzymatic activity and elongation of telomeres. A follow-up from the same laboratory (Bulletin of Experimental Biology and Medicine, 2004) used primary pulmonary fibroblasts from a 24-week fetus, which lost proliferative potential at passage 34 under control conditions. Treated cultures reached passage 44, described by the authors as ten additional divisions, with telomere length restored to a size comparable to that measured at passage 10. Both reports are single-laboratory studies. We found no published independent replication of the passage-44 result.

Rodent lifespan work forms the largest block. Anisimov and colleagues (Biogerontology, 2003) gave female outbred Swiss-derived SHR mice 1.0 microgram per mouse subcutaneously on five consecutive days each month, from three months of age until natural death, with 54 animals per group. Mean life span did not differ from saline controls, and food consumption and body weight were unchanged. The life span of the last 10% of survivors was 13.3% greater (P < 0.01) and maximum life span 12.3% greater. The frequency of chromosome aberrations in bone-marrow cells fell by 17.1% (P < 0.05). Total spontaneous tumour incidence was unchanged, while leukaemia incidence was 6.0-fold lower than control. The null results on mean life span and on total tumour incidence are stated by the authors themselves.

In FVB/N HER-2/neu transgenic mice (Anisimov et al., International Journal of Cancer, 2002), dosing at the same 1 microgram per mouse for five consecutive days each month, begun at two months of age, was associated with a reduced cumulative number and reduced maximum size of mammary tumours (p < 0.05), and with a reduction in the size but not the number of lung metastases. HER-2/neu mRNA expression in mammary tumours was 3.7-fold lower than in saline-treated animals. The same experiment ran Vilon (Lys-Glu) as a comparator peptide and recorded the opposite direction of effect, with increased mammary cancer incidence and a shorter mean latent period. That contrast is the most informative part of the paper, because it argues the observations were sequence-specific rather than a generic response to peptide injection.

Two gene-expression datasets exist. Anisimov SV and colleagues (Bulletin of Experimental Biology and Medicine, 2002) profiled 15,247 cDNA clones in mouse heart by microarray and found 300 clones, 1.94% of the total, changing more than two-fold. The peptide alone altered expression of 98 clones; alone or in combination with Vilon it activated 194 clones, at a maximum of 6.61-fold, and inhibited 48 clones, at a maximum of 2.71-fold. Khavinson and colleagues (Molecules, 2020) worked in human gingival mesenchymal stem cells and reported 1.6 to 1.8-fold increases in mRNA for Nestin, GAP43, beta-tubulin III and doublecortin, with increased protein signal for the same four markers. The mechanistic component of that paper is computational: molecular modelling predicted preferential binding of AEDG to histones H1/3 and H1/6 at defined sites. The binding was modelled, not measured.

Work from outside the originating group is recent and small in volume. Yue and colleagues (Aging, 2022) added 0.1 mM Epitalon to mouse oocyte culture medium and measured lower intracellular reactive oxygen species, a lower frequency of spindle defects and abnormal cortical-granule distribution at 12 and 24 hours, higher mitochondrial membrane potential and higher mitochondrial DNA copy number, and reduced apoptosis by 24 hours of in-vitro ageing. Ullah and colleagues (Life Sciences, 2025) examined bovine oocyte maturation and post-thaw embryo development and reported improved maturation rate relative to control (p < 0.05). Beyond that the published record on this specific tetrapeptide is thin. We identified no registered placebo-controlled human clinical trial of AEDG; most of the animal and cell literature shares the same two senior authors; and the 2025 International Journal of Molecular Sciences review (Araj et al.) states that, while effects on melatonin synthesis, interleukin-2 mRNA levels and the activity of enzymes including acetylcholinesterase, butyrylcholinesterase and telomerase have been reported, it remains uncertain whether those are the sole mechanisms of action. Epitalon is not an approved medicine in any jurisdiction, and it has appeared in the analytical chemistry literature as an ingredient identified in unlicensed pharmaceutical preparations (Vanhee et al., Drug Testing and Analysis, 2015), which is part of why independent identity and purity testing is the only claim a supplier can honestly make about it.