Description
PrymaLab · Research Use Only
Cortagen Peptide
Ala-Glu-Asp-Pro tetrapeptide · cortex bioregulator
Cortagen peptide is a lyophilized vial of the tetrapeptide Ala-Glu-Asp-Pro, written AEDP, assigned to brain cortex in the Khavinson bioregulator range. Its terminal proline is a feature shared with only one other compound here, and it changes both stability and chromatographic behaviour.
Specification Table
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Compound | Cortagen |
| Sequence designation | AEDP |
| Amino acid sequence | Alanine-Glutamate-Aspartate-Proline |
| Sequence provenance | Secondary sources, converging. Not traced to a single primary citation. Confirm against the lot certificate before relying on it for calculation |
| Residue count | 4 |
| Molecular weight, calculated | 430.4 g/mol, computed from standard residue masses plus water rather than quoted from a paper |
| Proline-terminating relative | Prostamax (Lys-Glu-Asp-Pro), the only other in this range |
| Net charge at neutral pH | Negative, two acidic residues and no basic residue |
| Chromatographic note | Cis-trans proline isomerisation can broaden or split peaks |
| Oxidation-prone residues | None |
| Chromophore | None. Concentration cannot be determined by 280 nm absorbance |
| Compound class | Short peptide bioregulator, cytogen subclass |
| Source tissue of the parent fraction | Brain cortex |
| Originating programme | St Petersburg Institute of Bioregulation and Gerontology |
| Proposed mechanism in the literature | Sequence-specific interaction with DNA, modulating tissue-associated gene expression |
| Mechanism status | Hypothesis. Not independently established outside the originating programme |
| Receptor | None identified |
| Appearance | White lyophilized powder |
| Purity | Per lot-specific certificate of analysis |
| Solubility | Water soluble |
| Storage, lyophilized | 2-8°C or -20°C, protected from light and moisture |
| Regulatory status | No approved human or veterinary formulation in any jurisdiction |
What Does the Terminal Proline Do in Cortagen Peptide?
Two compounds in this range end in proline and Cortagen peptide is one of them, which makes the comparison with Prostamax the natural starting point.
Among the twenty coded residues, proline alone loops its side chain back onto the backbone nitrogen. The resulting five-membered ring costs the backbone its amide hydrogen and locks the residue into a narrow band of permitted geometry.
Sitting at the carboxy terminus, that rigidity becomes a defence. Carboxypeptidases chew inward from that end and handle a terminal proline badly, so one residue obstructs a whole enzyme class.
Prostamax carries the same terminal proline on a lysine-opening backbone. Between them, Cortagen peptide and Prostamax are the two most protease-resistant compounds in this family at their carboxy ends.
Against that, Testagen and Epitalon both end in glycine, which is the least constrained residue available and presents carboxypeptidases with an easy substrate.
That spread across four compounds sharing three residues makes the alanine and lysine series an unusually clean test bed for how much a terminal residue changes enzymatic stability, and nobody appears to have measured it.
Why Can Cortagen Chromatograms Look Wrong?
The proline produces a chromatographic behaviour that is routinely misread as an impurity, and knowing about it saves rejecting good material.
The peptide bond preceding a proline interconverts between cis and trans geometries. Both are real conformations of the same molecule and the interconversion is slow enough to happen on a chromatographic timescale.
The consequence is peak broadening, and in some methods an outright split peak. A chemically pure preparation can therefore produce a chromatogram that looks contaminated.
Running the column at raised temperature speeds the interconversion, which sharpens the peak and merges a split one. That single test distinguishes isomerisation from a genuine second species.
A genuine impurity stays separate regardless of temperature. Isomerisation collapses toward a single peak as the column warms.
Ask a supplier what column temperature was used before treating a broad Cortagen peptide peak as a purity failure, because the same question applies to Prostamax and to nothing else in this family.
What Is a Cortex Bioregulator?
The organ phrasing names the programme premise rather than any pharmacological category, and the cortical assignment is worth examining.
The St Petersburg group fractionated organ extracts on the premise that each contains short peptides carrying tissue-specific regulatory information, then named each compound after its source tissue.
Cortagen peptide came from brain cortex in that work. Pinealon is assigned to pineal gland and central nervous tissue, so two compounds in this range address neural tissue by different assignments.
Those two do not share a series, since Cortagen opens with alanine and ends in proline. Pinealon is Glu-Asp-Arg, a truncated tripeptide from a different branch entirely.
For a family whose central claim is that terminal residues determine tissue targeting, having two neural compounds with no structural relationship is either a complication or a coincidence, and the record does not say which.
No tissue-distribution study across the family exists, so the cortical assignment rests on fractionation source rather than on demonstrated localisation.
What Cortagen Peptide Benefits Have Been Measured?
The published endpoints are narrower than the phrasing and the gap is worth naming rather than filling.
Work from the originating programme reports cortical tissue observations in aged rodent models, including histological assessment and markers of tissue-associated gene expression.
Chromatin decondensation appears in cell-culture work across this family. That finding supports the DNA-binding hypothesis rather than any cortical claim specifically.
The primary record for Cortagen sits in the middle of this family, thinner than Epitalon or Vilon and thicker than Vesilute or Chonluten.
No well-powered independent Western clinical trial exists for this compound, which characterises the entire bioregulator literature.
Settled chemistry, a documented but modest research record, and an unresolved mechanism. Keeping those three apart from one another, rather than letting one borrow credibility from another, is what makes a statement about this compound defensible.
What Cortagen Dosage Figures Are Published?
Each figure below comes from a published study, in whichever species that study worked in.
Rodent work occupies the microgram per kilogram band by parenteral routes, in line with the rest of the Khavinson range.
The Russian clinical record sets out ten to twenty day courses at tens to low hundreds of micrograms, given as discrete blocks rather than open-ended exposure.
Lingual and sublingual preparations appear in the family literature for several compounds including this one, and figures from that route are not comparable with parenteral amounts without accounting for absorption.
Nothing on record fixes a receptor affinity, so no concentration can be defended from first principles and wide ranging is a requirement.
Converting between species calls for allometric scaling by body surface area rather than body-weight arithmetic.
How Does Cortagen Compare With the Rest of the Alanine Series?
Four compounds in this range open with alanine, and setting them side by side shows what the programme was varying and what it held fixed.
Cortagen is Ala-Glu-Asp-Pro. Cardiogen is Ala-Glu-Asp-Arg. Cartalax is Ala-Glu-Asp. Vesugen substitutes lysine for the alanine and gives Lys-Glu-Asp.
The first three share three consecutive residues and differ only in what sits at the carboxy terminus, or in whether anything sits there at all.
That makes the series a natural structure-activity study, and one the originating programme never appears to have run as a single comparison.
Cortagen ends in proline, which is conformationally rigid and protease-resistant, where Cardiogen ends in arginine, which is basic and flexible. Cartalax ends in nothing beyond aspartate.
Three chemically distinct terminal choices on an identical backbone, assigned to three different organs. If terminal residue identity determines tissue targeting, this series is where that claim is testable at the lowest possible cost.
The masses separate cleanly. Cartalax at roughly 333.3, Cortagen at roughly 430.4 and Cardiogen at roughly 489.5 are far enough apart that no mass spectrometer would confuse them.
Chromatographically the proline terminus gives Cortagen the distinctive behaviour described above, which is the one place in this series where an analyst needs to think rather than read a number.
What Does the Alanine Do at the Other End?
The terminal residue draws most of the attention here, and the opening alanine is worth a paragraph of its own.
Alanine is the smallest residue with a side chain, a single methyl group, which makes it close to structurally neutral at a chain terminus.
Because solid-phase synthesis builds a chain from the carboxy terminus backwards, that alanine is the last residue added during manufacture.
A failed final coupling therefore yields Glu-Asp-Pro, a truncated tripeptide 71 daltons lighter than the intended product.
That impurity is not sold as a separate compound in this catalogue, unlike the des-alanine relationships elsewhere in this family where the truncation product has its own trade name.
It remains a plausible contaminant and the mass difference is easily resolved, so a chromatogram showing a species near 359.3 is worth a question.
The same logic applies to Cardiogen and Cartalax, both of which lose the same residue in the same step, which makes the alanine series share a single quality question.
Asking that question once covers three products, which is an efficient use of a supplier conversation. It also tests whether the supplier understands their own catalogue, since a vendor who cannot place Cortagen within the alanine series is unlikely to have examined the truncation risk that series carries. That is worth learning early, before a study is built on the material rather than after.
How Should Cortagen Peptide Be Verified and Stored?
Four residues is simple analysis.
Measured mass against roughly 430.4, calculated from residue masses rather than quoted from a paper.
Purity by reversed-phase chromatography with the column temperature stated explicitly, for the cis-trans isomerisation reason set out above, since a purity figure quoted without it cannot be interpreted. A purity figure without that context is harder to interpret here than for any other compound in the family.
Sequence stated explicitly as Ala-Glu-Asp-Pro. Four compounds share Ala-Glu-Asp and differ only at the terminus, so a trade name identifies nothing on its own.
Counterion identity, paired with a net peptide content figure. At 430.4 daltons a single trifluoroacetate at 114 is roughly 21 percent of the associated mass.
Store dry powder sealed and dark at 2 to 8 degrees Celsius or below. With no cysteine, methionine or tryptophan the compound is chemically undemanding, and standard consumables are adequate given the net negative charge.
The storage question changes shape in the Cortagen 20mg nasal spray. That format arrives already in aqueous buffer, so the reconstitution decision is made at manufacture and the fill date becomes the number worth tracking rather than the number of vial openings.
Published Literature
References verified against the publisher record. This literature originates almost entirely from one research programme.
- Khavinson VK, Malinin VV. Gerontological Aspects of Genome Peptide Regulation. Karger, Basel; 2005.
- Khavinson VK. Neuroendocrinology Letters. 2002;23(Suppl 3):11-144.
- Anisimov VN, Khavinson VK. Critical Reviews in Oncology/Hematology. 2010;74(1):46-66.
- Fedoreyeva LI, Kireev II, Khavinson VK, Vanyushin BF. Biochemistry (Moscow). 2011;76(11):1210-1219.
- Khavinson VK, Solovyov AY, Zhilinsky DV, Shataeva LK, Bandaletova TY. Bulletin of Experimental Biology and Medicine. 2012;153(4):500-505.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Cortagen peptide?
A lyophilized vial of the tetrapeptide Ala-Glu-Asp-Pro, written AEDP, assigned to brain cortex in the Khavinson bioregulator range. Sold for laboratory research only and approved in no jurisdiction for any purpose.
What does the terminal proline do?
It obstructs carboxypeptidases. Its ring geometry is poorly accommodated by enzymes that chew inward from the carboxy terminus, so a single terminal residue obstructs a whole class of degradative activity.
Which other compound shares it?
Prostamax, which is Lys-Glu-Asp-Pro. Between them Cortagen and Prostamax are the two most protease-resistant compounds in this family at their carboxy ends.
What is the opposite case?
Testagen and Epitalon, which both end in glycine. Glycine is the least constrained residue available and presents carboxypeptidases with an easy substrate, so those two should be the least resistant.
Why can a Cortagen chromatogram look contaminated?
Because the bond preceding a proline interconverts between cis and trans geometries slowly enough to happen on a chromatographic timescale. That broadens peaks and can split them, so a pure preparation can look impure.
How is that distinguished from real impurity?
By raising the column temperature. Faster interconversion sharpens the peak and merges a split one, whereas a genuine second species stays separate regardless of temperature.
What should be asked of a supplier?
What column temperature was used. A purity figure without that context is harder to interpret for Cortagen than for any other compound in this family, and the same question applies to Prostamax.
What is a cortex bioregulator?
A phrase that describes the fractionation programme rather than any recognised pharmacological category. Cortagen came from brain cortex during fractionation, so the name records the source rather than a demonstrated site of action.
How does it relate to Pinealon?
Only by tissue. Both are assigned to neural tissue, but Cortagen opens with alanine and ends in proline while Pinealon is Glu-Asp-Arg, a truncated tripeptide from a different branch entirely.
What endpoints have been measured?
Cortical tissue observations in aged rodent models including histology and gene-expression markers, plus family-wide cell-culture work on chromatin decondensation which supports the mechanism hypothesis rather than the cortical claim.
What dosage figures are published?
Parenteral rodent figures sit in the microgram per kilogram band, alongside a Russian clinical record built on short courses at tens to low hundreds of micrograms rather than continuous exposure.
Compliance Statement
Cortagen peptide is sold exclusively for laboratory research use. It is not a drug, food, or cosmetic product, and it is not a dietary product of any kind. It is not approved by the FDA or any comparable authority for human or veterinary use, its proposed mechanism has not been independently established, and amounts cited are figures from published studies in the species those studies used. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. It must not be given to humans or animals. Purchase is restricted to qualified researchers and institutions operating within applicable laws. All handling is the responsibility of the purchasing laboratory.
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