Intranasal route is one of those subjects where the details matter more than the headlines. This page pulls together the background, the mechanisms, and the practical points readers ask about most.
Last reviewed on 2026-06-08. Where a claim depends on a specific study, the study is described rather than over-claimed.
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.
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.
Characterization of Selank in laboratory settings relies on standard peptide analytical techniques. Reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography separates the peptide from related impurities and degradation products, while mass spectrometry confirms molecular identity through accurate mass measurement. Amino acid analysis and peptide sequencing verify the primary structure when reference material is unavailable. Because Selank is a short chain, fragmentation-based analysis produces a diagnostic ion pattern that supports confident identification.
Peptide stability depends strongly on temperature, moisture, and pH. Lyophilized Selank is generally most stable when stored cold and dry, with freezer temperatures commonly used for long-term storage. In solution, the compound is susceptible to hydrolysis and to microbial growth if it is not handled aseptically. The C-terminal proline-rich extension appears to slow enzymatic cleavage relative to tuftsin, though quantitative degradation rates vary with the matrix and the conditions tested. Published stability data specific to Selank remain sparse.
| Property | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Chemical class | Synthetic heptapeptide | Tuftsin analogue with a C-terminal Pro-Gly-Pro tail |
| Amino acid sequence | Thr-Lys-Pro-Arg-Pro-Gly-Pro | Abbreviated TKPRPGP in most catalogues |
| Molecular mass | About 752 Da | Value for the free peptide |
| Solubility | Freely soluble in water | Aqueous solutions are kept cold and used promptly |
| Typical storage | -20 °C, dry, protected from light | Applies to the lyophilised powder before reconstitution |
Proposed mechanisms center on modulation of the GABA system, but no single molecular target has been confirmed. Rodent studies report changes in GABA-A receptor expression and in the turnover of serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine in several brain regions. Increases in brain-derived neurotrophic factor and its receptor have also been described after repeated administration. These findings come largely from animal models, and the degree to which they describe human neurochemistry remains an open question. The mechanism is best characterized as multi-system and not fully resolved.
Pharmacokinetic data are limited. Like most short peptides, Selank is vulnerable to plasma and tissue peptidases, and its measured half-life in circulation is short, on a minutes scale. The Pro-Gly-Pro tail slows this degradation but does not eliminate it. Intranasal administration is the route described in most reports, with absorption through the nasal mucosa and a hypothesized path into the central nervous system that avoids the blood-brain barrier. Direct measurements of human brain exposure are unavailable, so distribution claims rest on inference from animal work.
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.
Solubility behavior is a practical concern for handling. Selank dissolves readily in water and in common aqueous buffers, which simplifies preparation of working solutions. The choice of solvent, ionic strength, and pH can influence aggregation over time, particularly at higher concentrations. Aqueous solutions are typically sterile-filtered before use. Because stability depends on several variables, storage and handling notes should be treated as general guidance rather than fixed rules, and specific values are best confirmed against a certificate of analysis for each batch.
Proposed mechanisms centre on the GABAergic system. Animal and tissue studies report changes in GABA-A receptor expression and reduced activity of GABA transaminase, the enzyme that degrades GABA. Effects on monoamine turnover, including serotonin and dopamine pathways, are also described, and a separate line of work links the peptide to increased expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor in hippocampal tissue. Most of these findings come from rodent models and cell preparations. How the individual observations combine into a single coherent mode of action is not settled.
Pharmacokinetic data are sparse and largely derived from animal work. After intranasal administration the peptide appears in plasma within minutes, and reported half-lives are short, on the order of minutes to tens of minutes. Degradation proceeds through ordinary proteolytic cleavage into constituent amino acids and smaller fragments. Direct evidence that intact Selank reaches brain tissue in meaningful amounts is limited, and the extent of blood-brain barrier penetration is debated. Some authors argue that fragments, not the parent peptide, carry much of the observed activity.
Published clinical work is concentrated in Russian-language journals and generally involves small samples without independent replication. Systematic reviews in English note the shortage of randomised, placebo-controlled trials and the difficulty of verifying methods from translated reports. Outcome measures vary between studies, which complicates pooling of results. Interest in the compound as a cognitive or anxiolytic agent therefore rests on a thinner evidence base than the volume of citations suggests. Replication in well-powered trials with preregistered endpoints would be needed before firm conclusions about efficacy can be drawn.
Organic molecular cages can be viewed as being composed of nodes and linkers. Nodes are the cornerstones of cage architecture and are typically rigid. Common node geometries include trigonal (three-directional), tetrahedral (four-directional), and octahedral (six-directional). Complementing the nodes, linkers connect these vertices to complete the cage. These linkers are typically linear or slightly bent organic molecules that contain pairs reactive end groups. Typical linkers are dialdehydes, diamines, and diboronic acids.
== Overdose == Excessive doses of metoprolol can cause bradycardia, hypotension, metabolic acidosis, seizures, and cardiorespiratory arrest. Blood or plasma concentrations may be measured to confirm a diagnosis of overdose or poisoning in hospitalized patients or to assist in a medicolegal death investigation. Plasma levels are usually less than 200 μg/L during therapeutic administration, but can range from 1–20 mg/L in overdose victims.
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Sources: en.wikipedia.org
=== Breeding === The arapaima male is a mouthbrooder, like the related Osteoglossum genus, meaning the young are protected in his mouth until they are older. The female arapaima helps to protect the male and the young by circling them and fending off potential predators. In his book, Three Singles to Adventure, naturalist Gerald Durrell reported that in British Guyana, female arapaima had been seen secreting a white substance from a gland in the head, and that their young were seemingly feeding on the substance.
The company's first customers were educational institutions and life-sciences companies that were building supercomputers for purposes of drug discovery, computational fluid dynamics, genetic and genomic research, to predict response to drugs, and for COVID-19 research. Early customers included GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, the National Energy Technology Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, and Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre. In September 2020, the company opened an office in Japan and partnered with Tokyo Electron. In April 2021, the company released its CS-2 system, based on the company's Wafer Scale Engine Two (WSE-2), which has 850,000 cores. The CS-2 is manufactured by the 7 nm process of TSMC. It is 26 inches (660 mm) tall and fits in one-third of a standard data center rack. The WSE-2 has 850,000 cores and 2.6 trillion transistors. It enables a single system to support AI models with more than 120 trillion parameters. The WSE-2 expanded on-chip SRAM to 40 gigabytes, memory bandwidth to 20 petabytes per second, and total fabric bandwidth to 220 petabits per second. Customers included TotalEnergies, nference, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), and the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre. In August 2021, Cerebras announced a partnership with Peptilogics on the development of AI for peptide therapeutics. In June 2022, Cerebras set a record for the largest AI models ever trained on one device—a single CS-2 system with one Cerebras wafer trained models with up to 20 billion parameters.
glycosylation The attachment of a carbohydrate molecule (e.g. glucose) to an amino acid residue within a peptide or protein by covalent bonding, a process which takes place in or near the rough endoplasmic reticulum.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
Selank is a seven-amino-acid peptide built from the tuftsin sequence plus a Pro-Gly-Pro tail. It is produced by chemical synthesis rather than extracted from a natural source. The free peptide is usually supplied as a lyophilised powder or in an aqueous formulation.
Tuftsin is a natural tetrapeptide derived from the Fc portion of immunoglobulin G. Selank retains that tetrapeptide at its N-terminus and adds three residues to improve resistance to enzymatic breakdown. The relationship is structural, and the two molecules are not interchangeable in experimental work.
It holds a product registration in Russia for intranasal use as an anxiolytic. Registrations of that kind are not automatically accepted by regulators elsewhere. In most other countries it is treated as an unapproved substance or a research material.
The most common approach combines reverse-phase liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry. Chromatography separates the components while mass spectrometry confirms the molecular mass. Peptide sequencing or tandem mass analysis can further verify the amino acid order.