N-Acetyl Epitalon Research, Specifications & Scientific Information

Introduction

N-Acetyl Epitalon is the tetrapeptide Epitalon — Ala-Glu-Asp-Gly — with an acetyl group capping its N-terminal amine. PubChem holds it as compound identifier 171390141 and the FDA/NCATS substance register carries the code UXR7AF6R4F against it, so it is a recognised chemical entity rather than a marketing name.

It has no research literature. No indexed primary report describes an experiment performed with the acetylated tetrapeptide, and no study of it is registered on ClinicalTrials.gov. Everything usually cited under this name — the telomerase work in cultured fibroblasts, the mouse lifespan study, the retinal experiments, the twelve-year observational reports — was done either with the unmodified tetrapeptide or, in several of the most-quoted cases, with the bovine pineal extract from which the tetrapeptide's composition was derived. Those are two substances already, and this is a third.

This page is therefore short by design. It records what the molecule is, what the modification does to its chemistry, and precisely where the parent literature stops.

What Is N-Acetyl Epitalon?

Epitalon is a synthetic tetrapeptide of four residues — alanine, glutamate, aspartate, glycine — with free termini and no modification. It belongs to the series of short peptides developed by Vladimir Khavinson's group and usually called peptide bioregulators, designed from the amino acid composition of tissue-specific polypeptide extracts and, in this case, subsequently detected within the pineal polypeptide complex by selective reaction monitoring ^[1].

N-Acetyl Epitalon is that sequence with an acetyl group on the alanine alpha-amino nitrogen. As with the other acetylated bioregulators sold as research materials, two structures circulate under adjacent names:

• N-Acetyl Epitalon — acetylated N-terminus, free C-terminal glycine carboxylic acid. PubChem compound identifier 171390141, molecular formula C16H24N4O10, average mass 432.38 g/mol.
• N-Acetyl Epitalon Amidate — additionally carrying a C-terminal carboxamide. PubChem returns no compound identifier under that name, so no register-sourced figures for it appear on this page.

Neither is approved anywhere. The unmodified tetrapeptide is itself unapproved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, with no marketing application on record in the United States and no registered trial; an acetylated analogue of an unapproved compound inherits none of the regulatory standing the parent does not have.

N-Acetyl Epitalon Specifications

The formula and mass are PubChem's record for compound identifier 171390141, whose structure carries the acetyl group on the N-terminal alanine amine and leaves the C-terminal glycine as a free carboxylic acid. The FDA/NCATS substance code recorded against it is UXR7AF6R4F. No CAS registry number resolves for the substance. Material is also marketed as N-Acetyl Epitalon Amidate, a doubly modified peptide additionally carrying a C-terminal carboxamide; PubChem returns no compound identifier under that name, so no register-sourced formula or mass for the amidated structure appears on this page. The two candidate structures differ by a single dalton.

Values that a public register does not carry are shown as not publicly characterised rather than estimated. Identifiers are reference values; the certificate of analysis supplied with a laboratory order is the record for a given lot.

How Does N-Acetyl Epitalon Work?

Nothing is established for this molecule, and nothing has been attempted in print.

The parent compound's proposed mechanism is unusual, and it is what makes the acetylation question interesting rather than routine. The originating group does not propose receptor pharmacology. It proposes that regulatory oligopeptides of this class initiate transcription of specific genes by binding promoter regions directly, and it identified candidate nucleotide-pair binding sites in the promoters of retinal gene F379, of telomerase and of RNA polymerase II ^[2]. Later work from the same programme extended the proposal to chromatin, describing preferential binding to histone H1 subtypes.

Interactions of that kind are electrostatic before they are anything else. DNA is a polyanion; histone H1 is strongly basic. The unmodified tetrapeptide is already an awkward candidate for binding a polyanion — it carries three carboxylate groups against a single N-terminal amine — and acetylation removes that amine. The acetylated molecule has no basic group at all.

That is an argument, not a result, and it is presented here as one. No experiment has been published either way. But it establishes that the modification is not chemically neutral with respect to the one mechanism the parent compound's own developers propose.

N-Acetyl Epitalon Mechanism of Action

In vitro research

No in vitro study of the acetylated tetrapeptide exists. This section records what the parent compound's in vitro record consists of, so that the boundary between the two is explicit rather than implied.

The telomerase result. Adding the unmodified tetrapeptide to a culture of telomerase-negative human fetal fibroblasts was reported to induce expression of the telomerase catalytic subunit, enzymatic telomerase activity, and telomere elongation ^[3]. This is the finding the compound is known for. It is a short report from the group that developed the peptide, in a single journal, and it has not been independently replicated in the indexed literature in the two decades since — a point set out at greater length on the Epitalon entry.

The transcriptional hypothesis. Promoter-region sequences capable of serving as binding sites for the tetrapeptide were identified computationally ^[2]. A sequence that can bind is not a sequence that does bind, and the paper proceeds explicitly from a hypothesis.

The state of the field as an outside group sees it. A 2025 review written outside the originating programme, by pharmaceutical scientists in Warsaw and Toruń, surveys twenty-five years of in vitro, in vivo and in silico work on the unmodified peptide and concludes that the volume of physico-chemical and structural investigation remains quite limited and that it is uncertain whether the described effects are the only mechanisms ^[4]. That review does not cover an acetylated analogue, because there is nothing to cover.

Every result named in this section was obtained with the unmodified tetrapeptide, in cell culture or in silico. Nothing in them establishes anything about the acetylated molecule, about intact animals, or about humans.

What Is N-Acetyl Epitalon Being Researched For?

Nothing on the public record. No published study, no registered trial, no preprint located under any of the molecule's names.

The research areas listed under this name by suppliers and secondary sources — telomere maintenance, geroprotection in rodents, retinal degeneration, pineal and melatonin biology — belong to the unmodified tetrapeptide or to Epithalamin, the bovine pineal extract. Those two bodies of work are themselves routinely conflated with each other; the Epitalon entry separates them and states which findings attach to which substance. Adding a third substance to that stack without saying so would compound an error this library exists to avoid.

Current Research Status

Status as of September 22, 2026. This block is rendered from maintained fields, not from prose, so it cannot go stale in one place and stay current in another.

N-Acetyl Epitalon vs Related Compounds

The parent tetrapeptide

Epitalon is the unmodified AEDG sequence, with PubChem compound identifier 219042, CAS registry number 307297-39-8, and a research record of roughly two dozen indexed papers concentrated in one group and one journal ^{[3, 1, 4]}.

Epithalamin, the extract

The human mortality and melatonin data most often quoted in this area were generated with a bovine pineal gland extract, not with any synthetic peptide. The tetrapeptide is one identified component of that mixture ^[1]. The acetylated tetrapeptide is two steps removed from it.

Other short bioregulators

Pinealon (Glu-Asp-Arg) and Thymalin come from the same programme and the same design premise. They share a methodology and a set of evidentiary limitations rather than a mechanism, and none of their results transfers to an acetylated analogue of a different sequence.

The amidated form

Material sold as N-Acetyl Epitalon Amidate carries a further C-terminal modification and has no PubChem record. Three candidate structures now circulate in this family — free peptide, acetylated acid, acetylated amide — differing by 42 and by 1 dalton respectively.

No comparison of effect between these compounds is made on this page.

Chemical & Molecular Characteristics

At 432 daltons the acetylated tetrapeptide is among the smallest molecules in this library, and its chemistry is dominated by charge.

Acetylation removes the only basic group. Glutamate at position 2, aspartate at position 3 and the C-terminal glycine carboxyl give the parent molecule three ionisable acidic groups against one N-terminal amine. Capping that amine leaves a species that is anionic at every physiological pH with nothing to counterbalance it. The consequence for membrane permeability is unfavourable in the same direction as for the parent, and the consequence for any proposed interaction with DNA or with a basic histone is unfavourable in a way the parent's single amine at least partly offsets ^[2].

No aromatic residue, therefore no useful ultraviolet handle. There is no tryptophan, tyrosine or phenylalanine, so the peptide has essentially no absorbance at 280 nm. Quantification by ultraviolet detection has to rely on peptide-bond absorbance near 214 nm, where solvents and buffers also absorb, and acetylation adds an amide bond without adding a chromophore.

Reversed-phase retention is poor and acetylation only marginally improves it. A peptide of this size and polarity is weakly retained on conventional C18 columns and can elute near the void volume, where it is hard to resolve from salts and synthesis-related impurities. Capping the terminal amine adds a small hydrophobic increment; it does not turn this into a well-behaved reversed-phase analyte. A purity figure reported "by HPLC" for this molecule is only as meaningful as the method behind it.

Asp and Glu bring isomeric impurities that mass cannot detect. The aspartate and glutamate residues are susceptible to alpha/beta rearrangement chemistry, and the resulting isomers are identical in mass to the intended product. Acetylation introduces a further possibility in this sequence, since an acetyl group on a short peptide can in principle migrate to an available side-chain nucleophile — again without changing the mass. Mass spectrometry confirms composition; it does not confirm that the four residues are joined in the intended way with the acetyl group in the intended place.

Recorded identifiers are PubChem compound identifier 171390141, FDA/NCATS substance code UXR7AF6R4F, molecular formula C16H24N4O10 and average mass 432.38 g/mol. No CAS registry number resolves for the substance, so that field is published as unknown rather than filled with the parent tetrapeptide's number.

Frequently Asked Questions

Scientific References

1. Khavinson VK, Kopylov AT, Vaskovsky BV, et al.. Identification of Peptide AEDG in the Polypeptide Complex of the Pineal Gland Bulletin of experimental biology and medicine; 2017. PMID 29124531 doi:10.1007/s10517-017-3922-8
2. Khavinson VKh, Shataeva LK, Chernova AA. Effect of regulatory peptides on gene transcription Bulletin of experimental biology and medicine; 2003. PMID 14666197 doi:10.1023/b:bebm.0000008986.02891.de
3. Khavinson VKh, Bondarev IE, Butyugov AA. Epithalon peptide induces telomerase activity and telomere elongation in human somatic cells Bulletin of experimental biology and medicine; 2003. PMID 12937682 doi:10.1023/a:1025493705728
4. Araj SK, Brzezik J, Mądra-Gackowska K, et al.. Overview of Epitalon-Highly Bioactive Pineal Tetrapeptide with Promising Properties International journal of molecular sciences; 2025. PMID 40141333 doi:10.3390/ijms26062691

Every identifier above is resolved against PubMed, Crossref or ClinicalTrials.gov at build time, and the title returned by the register is compared with the title stored here. A page does not publish if a reference fails to resolve.

Research-Use Information

For in vitro research use only. This material is a laboratory reagent. It is not a drug, food, dietary supplement, or cosmetic and is not for human or veterinary use, including ingestion, injection, or any other administration. No information on this page describes or implies any effect in humans or animals. Sold only to researchers under our Terms of Sale.