TP-7 raises a handful of sensible questions. This page answers them in order, starting with the fundamentals and moving to applications.
Reviewed 2026-06-26. Anything still debated is marked as such rather than presented as settled.
Regulatory status differs sharply by region. Selank holds a Russian marketing authorization, where it is supplied mainly as nasal drops, while authorities elsewhere have not approved it for medical use. Material sold internationally is therefore usually labeled as a research chemical rather than a medicine. Peer-reviewed publications come predominantly from Russian laboratories, and sample sizes are generally small. Whether the compound produces comparable effects under independent, well-controlled replication remains an open question that the broader literature has not settled.
Selank is a synthetic heptapeptide developed in Russia as a structural analogue of tuftsin, a naturally occurring immunomodulatory tetrapeptide. Its sequence, Thr-Lys-Pro-Arg-Pro-Gly-Pro, keeps the tuftsin core at the N-terminus and appends a Pro-Gly-Pro tail. Researchers at the Institute of Molecular Genetics in Moscow synthesized the compound during the 1990s while searching for peptides with combined anxiolytic and immunomodulatory activity. The added tail was intended to resist enzymatic cleavage and prolong the molecule's presence in circulation.
The compound has a calculated molecular weight near 751.9 daltons and carries a net positive charge at physiological pH because of its arginine residue. It dissolves freely in water and in common aqueous buffers, and typically appears as a white or off-white lyophilized powder. The amide backbone makes the molecule susceptible to peptidases, which limits oral use and favors intranasal or parenteral routes. Nomenclature in the literature varies: the substance is also described by the sequence abbreviation TP-7 and by a Russian trade designation.
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.
| Property | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Chemical class | Synthetic heptapeptide | Analog of the tetrapeptide tuftsin |
| Sequence | Thr-Lys-Pro-Arg-Pro-Gly-Pro | Reported consistently across pharmacopoeial descriptions |
| Appearance | White to off-white lyophilized powder | Typical form of research-grade material |
| Solubility | Freely soluble in water | Aqueous buffers; poor in nonpolar solvents |
| Typical storage temperature | -20 degrees Celsius | Lyophilized powder; protect from moisture |
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.
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.
Laboratory work relies on standard behavioral paradigms. Rodents are tested in the elevated plus maze, open field, and passive avoidance tasks, with outcomes compared against diazepam or vehicle controls. Intranasal dosing is used most often because it bypasses first-pass metabolism, though intraperitoneal and intravenous routes also appear in published protocols. Biochemical endpoints include tissue BDNF concentrations, cytokine levels, and monoamine metabolites. Human data are limited to small Russian trials reporting reduced anxiety scores; most were not prospectively registered, and few employed independent outcome assessment.
Measuring peptide exposure inside the brain is technically difficult. Selank is degraded rapidly in plasma, and assays must separate intact peptide from fragments, which favors targeted mass spectrometry over immunoassays alone. Reported half-lives are short, on the order of minutes, so effects observed hours later are attributed to downstream signaling rather than to the parent compound. Blood-brain barrier permeability is debated and rarely quantified directly. Gaps include absent dose-response characterization, inconsistent reporting of purity, and almost no pharmacokinetic data from human participants.
Selank is studied chiefly as an animal-model anxiolytic with proposed secondary effects on memory and immune signaling. Reported mechanisms include modulation of the GABA-A receptor complex, inhibition of enkephalin-degrading enzymes, and shifts in monoamine turnover within limbic structures. Some experiments describe increased expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor in the hippocampus after repeated dosing. No single molecular target has been confirmed, and the peptide does not bind any receptor with the selectivity typical of a conventional small-molecule drug. Mechanism therefore remains a set of hypotheses rather than an established pathway.
Visceral fat or abdominal fat (also known as organ fat or intra-abdominal fat) is located inside the abdominal cavity, packed between the organs (stomach, liver, intestines, kidneys, etc.). Visceral fat is different from subcutaneous fat underneath the skin, and intramuscular fat interspersed in skeletal muscles. Fat in the lower body, as in thighs and buttocks, is subcutaneous and is not consistently spaced tissue, whereas fat in the abdomen is mostly visceral and semi-fluid. Visceral fat is composed of several adipose depots, including mesenteric, epididymal white adipose tissue (EWAT), and perirenal depots. Visceral fat is often expressed in terms of its area in cm2 (VFA, visceral fat area). An excess of visceral fat is known as abdominal obesity, or "belly fat", in which the abdomen protrudes excessively. New developments such as the Body Volume Index (BVI) are specifically designed to measure abdominal volume and abdominal fat. Excess visceral fat is also linked to type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance, inflammatory diseases, and other obesity-related diseases. Likewise, the accumulation of neck fat (or cervical adipose tissue) has been shown to be associated with mortality. Several studies have suggested that visceral fat can be predicted from simple anthropometric measures, and predicts mortality more accurately than body mass index or waist circumference. Men are more likely to have fat stored in the abdomen due to sex hormone differences. Estrogen (female sex hormone) causes fat to be stored in the buttocks, thighs, and hips in women.
=== Photonics Lab on a Chip === Due to the increase in safety concerns and operating costs of common analytic methods (ICP-MS, ICP-AAS, and ICP-OES), the Photonics Lab on a Chip (PhLOC) is becoming an increasingly popular tool for the analysis of actinides and nitrates in spent nuclear waste. The PhLOC is based on the simultaneous application of Raman and UV-Vis-NIR spectroscopy, which allows for the analysis of more complex mixtures which contain several actinides at different oxidation states. Measurements made with these methods have been validated at the bulk level for industrial tests, and are observed to have a much lower variance at the micro-scale. This approach has been found to have molar extinction coefficients (UV-Vis) in line with known literature values over a comparatively large concentration span for 150 μL via elongation of the measurement channel, and obeys Beer's Law at the micro-scale for U(IV). Through the development of a spectrophotometric approach to analyzing spent fuel, an on-line method for measurement of reactant quantities is created, increasing the rate at which samples can be analyzed and thus decreasing the size of deviations detectable within reprocessing. Through the application of the PhLOC, flexibility and safety of operational methods are increased.
Actually, some manufacturers of high-throughput systems have adopted the system to work with their robots. This illustrates the orientation of this kit solution to laboratories with a larger number of samples.
=== Bibliography === Spring 2009 Class Notes, CHM 5154, Chemical Separations taught by Dr. John Dorsey, Ph.D, Florida State University "Fundamental Resolution Equation". Chemistry LibreTexts. LibreTexts. 29 December 2016. Retrieved 1 December 2023. "Appendix 1: Derivation of the Fundamental Resolution Equation". Chemistry LibreTexts. LibreTexts. 30 December 2016. Retrieved 1 December 2023.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
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Sources: en.wikipedia.org
Selank is a synthetic seven-amino-acid peptide modeled on tuftsin, a fragment of the immunoglobulin G heavy chain. It was designed in Russia to combine anxiolytic and immunomodulatory properties in one molecule.
The first four residues of Selank reproduce the tuftsin sequence Thr-Lys-Pro-Arg. A Pro-Gly-Pro extension at the C-terminus was added to slow enzymatic breakdown and extend residence time.
It holds marketing authorization in Russia, where nasal drop formulations are sold. No equivalent approval exists in the European Union, the United States, or most other countries.
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.