The short version of electrospray ionization fits in a sentence. The long version — which is the one that helps — is below.
Reviewed 2025-09-26. Anything still debated is marked as such rather than presented as settled.
Handling follows standard practice for research peptides. Material is weighed in a low-humidity environment because the powder absorbs atmospheric moisture. Purity is reported as the percentage area of the main peak in a chromatogram, with specifications commonly set at 95 percent or higher; values below that threshold indicate the presence of truncated or modified species. Residual trifluoroacetate from purification is often present and may affect mass balance. Certificates of analysis should state the analytical method, the column and gradient used, and the lot-specific retention time so that results can be compared across suppliers.
Identity and purity of selank are established with reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry. The peptide elutes from C18 columns with acetonitrile gradients in water containing trifluoroacetic acid or formic acid, and detection is usually performed by ultraviolet absorbance near 214 nm. Electrospray ionization in positive mode gives a doubly protonated ion near m/z 377, consistent with a mass of about 752 Da. Amino acid analysis or tandem mass spectrometry of fragment ions confirms the sequence. Because the molecule has no aromatic residues, it lacks a usable 280 nm chromophore, so low-wavelength detection or mass spectrometry is required.
Animal studies have examined behaviour in tests of anxiety, memory retention and stress response, and several report changes in neurotrophic or neurotransmitter-related markers. The human evidence base is much smaller, consisting mainly of short trials conducted in Russia with limited reporting in English-language journals. Sample sizes are modest and outcome measures vary between studies, so the findings are best described as preliminary. Independent replication under modern trial standards has not been widely reported.
Outside its country of origin the compound is generally handled as a research chemical rather than an approved medicine. No regulatory approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration or the European Medicines Agency has been granted for human use. Identity and purity are normally checked by reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography, with mass spectrometry used to confirm the molecular mass. Lyophilised material is stored cold and desiccated, and repeated freeze-thaw cycles are avoided.
Published work on this peptide almost always uses intranasal delivery, with drops or a spray applied to the nasal mucosa. Some animal experiments have used subcutaneous or intraperitoneal injection, and a smaller number have compared routes directly. Oral administration is not a focus of the literature, because short peptides of this size are broken down by digestive enzymes and cross intestinal barriers poorly. How much of an intranasal dose reaches the bloodstream intact in humans remains an open question.
| Property | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Identity confirmation | Reversed-phase HPLC retention time versus reference standard | Retention depends on column, gradient, and ion-pairing agent |
| Mass confirmation | Electrospray or MALDI mass spectrometry | Doubly protonated ion near m/z 377 is consistent with about 752 Da |
| Typical purity specification | 95 percent or higher by chromatographic peak area | Lower values suggest truncated or modified peptide species |
| Storage of lyophilized powder | -20 °C, desiccated, protected from light | Powder tolerates long storage better than solution |
| Storage of solution | 2-8 °C for short periods | Freeze-thaw cycling promotes aggregation and surface adsorption |
Characterization of Selank in a laboratory setting relies on standard peptide methods. Reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography separates the target from related impurities and provides a purity figure, commonly reported as 95 percent or higher. Mass spectrometry, typically electrospray ionization or matrix-assisted laser desorption, confirms the molecular mass and helps detect truncation or modification. Amino acid analysis can verify composition when a sequence-level check is needed. These techniques together establish identity and purity for a given lot.
Lyophilized Selank, the dry powder form, is generally stored frozen at minus 20 degrees Celsius or colder for long-term keeping. The solid is hygroscopic and should stay sealed, dry, and protected from light. Once dissolved, the peptide is less stable and is usually held refrigerated at 2 to 8 degrees Celsius for short periods. Repeated freezing and thawing is avoided because it can promote aggregation and loss of activity. Buffers and pH choice also affect how long a solution remains usable.
Proposed mechanisms centre on modulation of the GABAergic system, with reports of altered expression of genes related to GABA-A receptor subunits and changed monoamine turnover. Some studies describe inhibition of enkephalinase, the enzyme that degrades endogenous enkephalins, which may prolong opioid peptide signalling. Effects on brain-derived neurotrophic factor and on cytokine expression have also been reported. These findings come largely from animal models and small human studies, and the precise primary target remains unresolved.
Published clinical evidence is limited. Most controlled trials were conducted in Russia, enrolled modest numbers of participants, and appeared in Russian-language journals, which restricts independent verification. Reported outcomes include lower anxiety scores, improved attention and memory measures, and changes in fatigue ratings. Reviews written in English note methodological limitations such as small samples and inconsistent endpoints. Whether the compound produces clinically meaningful benefit relative to established anxiolytics is therefore an open question rather than an established finding.
Selank is a synthetic heptapeptide with the sequence Thr-Lys-Pro-Arg-Pro-Gly-Pro. It was designed at the Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences as a structural analogue of tuftsin, a naturally occurring tetrapeptide fragment of the immunoglobulin heavy chain. The added Pro-Gly-Pro tail was intended to slow enzymatic degradation and extend biological activity. In Russia it is registered as an anxiolytic nasal preparation, while regulators elsewhere have not approved it for clinical use.
Enzymatic stability motivates the extra three residues at the carboxyl end. Native tuftsin is cleaved quickly by circulating aminopeptidases and carboxypeptidases, which limits its duration of action and its usefulness as a tool compound. Extending the chain with proline-rich segments is a common design tactic because proline constrains the backbone and slows proteolysis. The same Pro-Gly-Pro motif appears in other Russian-developed peptides of the era. Whether the full seven-residue chain is required for activity, or whether it acts mainly as a prodrug releasing tuftsin, remains unresolved.
Selank is a synthetic heptapeptide with the sequence Thr-Lys-Pro-Arg-Pro-Gly-Pro. Its four N-terminal residues reproduce tuftsin, a tetrapeptide fragment of the immunoglobulin heavy chain, while the C-terminal Pro-Gly-Pro extension is a synthetic addition. The peptide has a molecular mass near 752 daltons and carries a net positive charge at physiological pH because of the arginine and lysine side chains. Published indexes list it under the name Selank and the sequence abbreviation TKPRPGP. Solid-phase peptide synthesis is the standard production route for research quantities.
Development took place at the Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, where a series of short peptides were designed in the 1980s and 1990s. Selank was selected from variants of tuftsin that showed resistance to plasma peptidases. Russian regulatory approval covers it as an anxiolytic agent given intranasally. Outside that market the compound is normally handled as a research chemical rather than a medicine, and no widely recognised international pharmacopoeial monograph exists. The name Selank is a coined trade designation rather than a systematic chemical name.
The Pakistan Institute of Fashion and Design, commonly referred to as PIFD, (formerly known as Pakistan School of Fashion Design) is a design institute specialising in design education. It offers a four-year course of study leading to a bachelor's degree.
The steepness of greatest curvature from 'mild' (< 45 D), 'advanced' (up to 52 D) or 'severe' (> 52 D); The morphology of the cone: 'nipple' (small: 5 mm and near-central), 'oval' (larger, below-center and often sagging), or 'globus' (more than 75% of cornea affected); The corneal thickness from mild (> 506 μm) to advanced (< 446 μm). Increasing use of corneal topography has led to a decline in use of these terms.
== References == van der Geer P, Wiley S, Pawson T (1999). "Re-engineering the target specificity of the insulin receptor by modification of a PTB domain binding site". Oncogene. 18 (20): 3071–5. doi:10.1038/sj.onc.1202879. PMID 10340378.
Remoras have their front dorsal fins modified into large suckers with which they cling onto a host animal such as a whale, sea turtle, shark or ray, but this is probably a commensal rather than parasitic arrangement because both remora and host benefit from the removal of ectoparasites and loose flakes of skin. More harmful are the catfish that enter the gill chambers of fish and feed on their blood and tissues. The snubnosed eel, though usually a scavenger, sometimes bores into the flesh of a fish, and has been found inside the heart of a shortfin mako shark. Some species, such as electric eels, can produce powerful electric currents, strong enough to stun prey. Other fish, such as knifefish, generate and sense weak electric fields to detect their prey; they swim with straight backs to avoid distorting their electric fields. These currents are produced by modified muscle or nerve cells.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
=== Principal positions === Starting as a biochemist at the United States Public Health Service at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland from 1941 to 1959, Horecker moved to the New York University Grossman School of Medicine, until 1963, then at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology in Nutley, New Jersey and finally at Cornell University.
Dupilumab is indicated for the treatment of moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis; moderate-to-severe asthma; chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps; eosinophilic esophagitis; prurigo nodularis; and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. It has been shown to be effective at treating aspirin-exacerbated respiratory disease (AERD), a typically difficult to treat condition where aspirin intolerant patients have both chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps and asthma.
=== Fijian === A man by the name of Levani Mavoa from the village of Vadravadra on Gau Island is reported to have the longest name in Fiji and possibly the world. His full surname is Mavoaiuluivitimaitaveunienanodralakicakacakatakanavalenilotunagonenivadravadraenaesitetimaiuraqaicuruvularuaenavaleniveivakabulaimaiwaiyevoenayasanakocakaudrove, which is 160 letters long. His surname translates to "injured while on Taveuni when the people of Vadravadra went to work at Ura Estate where he got injured and was later admitted for two months at the Waiyevo Hospital in the province of Cakaudrove".
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
== R == Ronald T. Raines (born 1958), American chemist Adam Vladislavovich Rakovsky (1879–1941), Soviet physical chemist Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (born 1952), 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry William Ramsay (1852–1916), Scottish chemist, 1904 Nobel Prize in Chemistry C. N. R. Rao (born 1934), Indian chemist François-Marie Raoult (1830–1901), French chemist, known for Raoult's law Henry Rapoport (1918–2002), American chemist, UC Berkeley William Sage Rapson (1912–1999), South African chemist and co-author of Gold Usage Nil Ratan Dhar (1892–1986), Pioneering Indian soil chemist Ken Raymond (born 1942), American inorganic and bioinorganic chemist, UC Berkeley Prafulla Chandra Ray (1861–1944), Indian chemist Julius Rebek (born 1944), Hungarian American chemist Charles Lee Reese (1862–1940), American chemist and Chemical Director of DuPont Henri Victor Regnault (1810–1878), French chemist and physicist Tadeus Reichstein (1897–1996), chemist, 1950 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Oleg Reutov (1920-1998), soviet organic chemist Rhazes (Razi) (865–925), Persian physician, philosopher and alchemist Stuart A.
=== Pharmacokinetics === Bimatoprost is well absorbed through the cornea. It starts lowering intraocular pressure after four hours, lasting for at least 24 hours. A low percentage enters the bloodstream. In the blood plasma, peak concentrations are reached after 10 minutes, then drop below the detection limit of 25 pg/ml after 1.5 hours. The substance does not accumulate in the body. Plasma protein binding is 88%. Bimatoprost is metabolized by oxidation, N-deethylation and glucuronidation, forming a variety of metabolites. Biological half-life was measured to be 45 minutes after intravenous infusion. 67% are eliminated via the kidney, and 25% via the feces.
== History and research == Research in the early 1960s showed that in rats, administration of α-MSH caused sexual arousal, and work on this continued in many labs up through the 1980s, when scientists at the University of Arizona began attempting to develop α-MSH and analogs as potential sunless tanning agents, and synthesized and tested several analogs, including melanotan-I and melanotan II. Early in the research process one of the scientists, who was conducting experiments on himself with an early tool compound, melanotan II, injected himself with twice the dose he intended to and got an eight-hour erection, along with nausea and vomiting. As a tanning agent, melanotan I (now known as afamelanotide) was licensed by Competitive Technologies, a technology transfer company operating on behalf of the University of Arizona, to an Australian startup called Epitan, which changed its name to Clinuvel in 2006. Afamelanotide was approved by the FDA in 2019. As a sexual dysfunction agent, melanotan II was licensed by Competitive Technologies to Palatin Technologies. Palatin ceased development of melanotan II in 2000 and synthesized, patented, and began to develop bremelanotide, a likely metabolite of melanotan II that differs in that it has a carboxy group where melanotan II has an amide. Competitive Technologies (Clinuvel) sued Palatin for breach of contract and tried to claim ownership of bremelanotide; the parties settled in 2008 with Palatin retaining rights to bremelanotide, returning rights to melanotan II to Competitive Technologies, and paying US$800,000.
junk DNA Any DNA sequence that appears to have no known biological function, or which acts in a way that has no positive or a net negative effect on the fitness of the genome in which it is located. The term was once more broadly used to refer to all non-coding DNA, though much of this was later discovered to have a function; in modern usage it typically refers to broken or vestigial sequences and selfish genetic elements, including introns, pseudogenes, intergenic DNA, and fragments of transposons and retroviruses, which together constitute a large proportion of the genomes of most eukaryotes. Despite not contributing productively to the host organism, these sequences are able to persist indefinitely inside genomes because the disadvantages of continuing to copy them are too small to be acted upon by natural selection.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
Identity is confirmed by matching the retention time in reversed-phase chromatography against a reference standard and by measuring the molecular mass with mass spectrometry. Tandem mass spectrometry or amino acid analysis can verify the sequence of the seven residues. Because the peptide contains no aromatic amino acids, detection at 280 nm is not useful.
Lyophilized powder is normally stored desiccated at -20 °C, protected from light and moisture. Powder kept under these conditions is generally stable for long periods. Solutions are less stable and are usually prepared immediately before use.
A purity value from one chromatographic method does not capture every possible impurity. Related peptides with similar retention behavior, counterions, and residual solvents may not appear in the same analysis. Independent testing with an orthogonal method provides stronger assurance of identity and content.
Most published work uses intranasal application, either as drops or as a nasal spray. Injection routes appear in a smaller set of animal experiments. Oral use is uncommon in the literature because peptide breakdown and poor absorption limit this route.