This is a working overview of GABA-A receptor, written for readers who want more than a one-paragraph summary but less than a textbook.
This page was last updated on 2025-09-25 and is reviewed periodically as new material appears.
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.
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.
| Property | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Primary route studied | Intranasal | Also examined parenterally in animal work |
| Reported plasma half-life | Minutes to tens of minutes | Values vary widely between reports |
| Main model systems | Rodent behavioural and cell assays | Human trials are few and small |
| Principal proposed targets | GABA-A receptor, GABA transaminase | Monoamine and neurotrophic pathways also reported |
| Evidence grade | Preliminary | Limited independent replication |
Selank is a hydrophilic peptide and dissolves readily in water and in aqueous buffers. The lyophilised powder is typically a white to off-white solid. Because short peptides are prone to hydrolysis and oxidation, handling benefits from limiting exposure to heat, moisture and strong light. Working solutions are commonly prepared in sterile water or saline, and repeated freeze-thaw cycles are avoided to reduce aggregation and loss of activity. These practices reflect general laboratory convention rather than published stability specifications.
Dry powder is normally held at -20 degrees Celsius or lower, in a sealed container with desiccant and protection from light. Reconstituted solutions are usually kept at 2 to 8 degrees Celsius for short periods and frozen for longer ones. Proline residues at several positions are generally associated with some resistance to peptidase attack, but chemical stability still declines at neutral to alkaline pH and at elevated temperature. Exact shelf-life figures are product-specific and are not standardised across suppliers.
Identity and purity are usually assessed by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography, with mass spectrometry used to confirm molecular mass and sequence information. Amino acid analysis and peptide mapping may supplement these methods. Certified reference standards are scarce, and many commercial lots are sold as research chemicals without a pharmacopoeial monograph. Regulatory treatment differs by country: Selank is a registered prescription medicine in Russia, while in the European Union and the United States it is not an approved drug and may fall under research-chemical or unapproved-product frameworks.
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.
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.
=== Commercial formulation === Chemically, Adderall is a mixture of four amphetamine salts; specifically, it is composed of equal parts (by mass) of amphetamine aspartate monohydrate, amphetamine sulfate, dextroamphetamine sulfate, and dextroamphetamine saccharate. This drug mixture has slightly stronger CNS effects than racemic amphetamine due to the higher proportion of dextroamphetamine. Adderall is produced as both an immediate-release (IR) and extended-release (XR) formulation. As of December 2013, ten different companies produced generic Adderall IR, while Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Actavis, and Barr Pharmaceuticals manufactured generic Adderall XR. As of 2013, Shire plc, the company that held the original patent for Adderall and Adderall XR, still manufactured brand name Adderall XR, but not Adderall IR.
== Etymology and naming == The most common English names for the species include great white shark, white shark, and the Australian English variant white pointer. These names refer to its white underside, which is noticeable in dead sharks lying upside down. Colloquial use favors the name 'great white shark' or simply 'great white', with 'great' perhaps emphasizing the size and power of the species. Scientists typically use 'white shark' or 'the white shark' as no "lesser white shark" exists for comparison, though some use 'white shark' to refer to all members of the Lamnidae. The scientific generic name, Carcharodon, combines two Greek words. The prefix carchar- is derived from κάρχαρος (kárkharos), which means "sharp". The suffix -odon derives from ὀδών (odṓn), which translates to "tooth". The specific name carcharias is from the καρχαρίας (karkharías), the Ancient Greek word for shark. The white shark was one of the species originally described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae and assigned the scientific name Squalus carcharias, Squalus being the genus in which he placed all sharks. By the 1810s, the shark was recognized as needing to be placed in a new genus, but not until 1838 did Sir Andrew Smith coin the name Carcharodon as the new genus. A few attempts have been made to describe and classify the white shark before Linnaeus. One of the earliest mentions of it in literature as a distinct type of animal appears in a 1553 book by Pierre Belon.
=== Synthetase Domain: ATP Pyrophosphatase domain === The synthetase domain is responsible for the addition of the abstracted Nitrogen to the acceptor substrate. The ATP Pyrophosphatase domain consists of a beta sheet containing 5 parallel strands with several alpha helices on each side. The P loop is the nucleotide binding motif; residues 235-241 make up the P loop which specifically binds to pyrophosphate. The structure of this domain is what creates the specificity of this enzyme for ATP. The binding pocket forms hydrophobic interactions with the adenine ring, and the backbone of Val260 forms H bonds with multiple Nitrogens in the ring of AMP, which excludes substituents on the C2 purine ring. This creates extreme specificity for adenine and ATP binding.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
Giving peanut products early in childhood may decrease the risk of allergies, and only breastfeeding during at least the first few months of life may decrease the risk of allergic dermatitis. There is little evidence that a mother's diet during pregnancy or breastfeeding affects the risk of allergies, although there has been some research to show that irregular cow's milk exposure might increase the risk of cow's milk allergy. There is some evidence that delayed introduction of certain foods is useful, and that early exposure to potential allergens may actually be protective. Following revisions to US and UK pediatric guidelines in 2015 and 2017 that encouraged introducing peanut products to high-risk infants at four to six months of age, one 2025 analysis found a 43% drop in the frequency of peanut allergies, with an estimated 40,000 cases prevented. According to that report, some pediatric experts have cautioned that real-world implementation of the guidelines may be inconsistent. Fish oil supplementation during pregnancy is associated with a lower risk of food sensitivities. Probiotic supplements during pregnancy or infancy may help to prevent atopic dermatitis.
The 4n+3 chain of uranium-235 is commonly called the "actinium series" or "actinium cascade", from the first member known when it was named, actinium-227. This series terminates with lead-207, 7 alpha decays and 4 beta decays from uranium. In the early Solar System, this chain went back to 247Cm. This manifests itself today as variations in 235U/238U ratios, since curium and uranium have noticeably different chemistries and therefore partitioned differently. The total energy released from uranium-235 to lead-207, including the energy lost to neutrinos, is 46.40 MeV; from californium-251, 69.91 MeV.
== Structure == Erythroferrone in humans is transcribed as a precursor of 354 amino acids, with a signal peptide of 28 amino acids. The mouse gene encodes a 340 amino acid protein which is 71% identical. Homology is greater at the C-terminal where there is a TNF-alpha-like domain. As a member of the C1q/TNF-Related Protein (CTRP) family, erythroferrone has a 4-domain structure with a unique N-terminus. The two larger domains are connected by a short, proline-rich, collagenous linker that is thought to promote protein multimerization. Erythroferrone is predicted to contain two PCSK3/furin recognition sites. The protein hormone weighs approximately 35-40 kDa.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
The Gallery of Mineralogy, looking across the formal garden and close to the Gallery of Evolution, was constructed between 1833 and 1837 by Charles Rohault de Fleury in a neoclassical style, with two porticos of Doric columns. Directly in front is the rose garden, renewed in 1990 with 170 types of European roses, as well as a Japanese pagoda tree (Styphnolobium japonicum), planted there by Bernard de Jussieu in 1747. The gallery contains over 600,000 stones and fossils. It is particularly known for its collection of giant crystals, including colourful examples of azurite, tourmaline (rubelite), malachite and ammonite.ammonite Other displays include the jars and vestiges of the original royal apothecary of Louis XIV, and three Florentine marble marquetry tables from the palace of Cardinal Mazarin. The gallery also contains a large collection of meteorites which have been gathered from around the world. This includes a large fragment of Canyon Diablo meteorite, a piece of an asteroid which landed on Earth about 550,000 years ago and created the Meteor Crater in Arizona. It weighs 360 kg (790 lb).
Because 243Pu has little opportunity to capture an additional neutron before decay, the nuclear fuel cycle does not produce the long-lived 244Pu in significant quantity. 238Pu is not normally produced in as large quantity by the nuclear fuel cycle, but some is produced from neptunium-237 by neutron capture (this reaction can also be used with purified neptunium to produce 238Pu relatively free of other plutonium isotopes for use in radioisotope thermoelectric generators), by the (n,2n) reaction of fast neutrons on 239Pu, or by alpha decay of curium-242, which is produced by neutron capture of 241Am. It has significant thermal neutron cross section for fission, but is more likely to capture a neutron and become 239Pu.
== Chemical properties == Ethylene oxide readily reacts with diverse compounds with opening of the ring. Its typical reactions are with nucleophiles which proceed via the SN2 mechanism both in acidic (weak nucleophiles: water, alcohols) and alkaline media (strong nucleophiles: OH−, RO−, NH3, RNH2, RR'NH, etc.). The general reaction scheme is
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
Reports describe modulation of GABA signalling, changes in monoamine turnover and effects on neurotrophic factor expression. These observations come mainly from animal and cell studies. A single unifying mechanism has not been demonstrated.
The peptide enters plasma rapidly and is broken down by ordinary proteases into amino acids and shorter fragments. Reported half-lives are short. Whether meaningful amounts of the intact molecule reach the brain is an open question.
Most clinical reports are small, published in Russian and not independently replicated. English-language reviews highlight the absence of large randomised trials. Conclusions about efficacy should be treated as provisional.
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.