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Signalling peptide

Pinealon

Also known as Glu-Asp-Arg

A short peptide from the Khavinson bioregulator tradition, associated with brain tissue.

InsufficientHealthy Aging
Human studies
1
Trials tracked
0
Preclinical
1
Safety signals
2
Last reviewed
27 Sept 2026
Reviewed by
Not yet reviewed

Part of a genuine, decades-long Russian research programme in short peptide bioregulators, associated with the St Petersburg Institute of Bioregulation and Gerontology. The grade reflects one specific gap and not the tradition's origin: we could locate no substantive independent replication outside the originating group. A body of work that has not been tested by people with no stake in the outcome is hard to weigh however large it is, and that would be equally true of a Western programme. Human reports on synthetic pinealon exist, but they are short Russian-language papers in Adv Gerontol that we have read only in abstract. None describes randomisation or blinding, and none prints effect sizes. One (Bashkireva and Artamonova 2012, PMID 23734521) is from an author who has co-authored with Khavinson elsewhere. It compares lorry drivers with metal craftsmen, which is an occupational comparison group and not a peptide control, and it prints only a p-value range for the peptide effect. The human report cited here (Meshchaninov 2015, PMID 26390612) also describes a fall in CD34+ blood-forming cells when pinealon and vesugen were given together. Three sources lie outside the St Petersburg institute's own author lists, to different degrees. The first is an Ekaterinburg group (PMIDs 26390612 and 28539017), whose records list no St Petersburg affiliation. The second is a Rostov-on-Don group at South Federal University (Mendzheritskiy and Karantysh) with in-vivo rat work on pinealon. Its 2011 report (PMID 21809624) lists no institute author, but its 2014 and 2015 reports (PMIDs 25051764 and 28509493) are co-authored with the institute's Ryzhak GA. That group is therefore connected to the originating institute, not independent of it. The third is an unreviewed 2026 mouse preprint (Marín-Jerez et al., doi 10.21203/rs.3.rs-9682683/v1), which found only "a trend toward improved working memory" with pinealon. None of these replicates a specific originating-group finding, so there is still no substantive independent replication.

This dossier has not been reviewed yet. Our editorial board is not appointed. Every page is supposed to carry a named scientific and medical reviewer with declared conflicts, and until that is true this page has had no expert check — treat it accordingly. We would rather say so than print a name-shaped placeholder where a person should be.
Pinealon is not an approved medicine for human use in the jurisdictions listed below. This page summarises research. It is not a recommendation, and it contains no dosing or administration guidance. If you are considering anything described here, discuss it with a qualified clinician.
On this page

What it is

A 3-amino-acid peptide (Glu-Asp-Arg) from the Khavinson short peptide series, in which each sequence is proposed to act on a specific tissue — here brain and pineal. Epitalon is the best-known member of the same family.

How it is proposed to work

The programme's central hypothesis is that very short peptides can enter cells, reach the nucleus and interact with DNA in a sequence-specific way, modulating gene expression in the tissue each peptide is matched to. This is a strong and specific claim. It is also testable, and independent testing is what the literature most lacks.

Approved medical uses

None. Pinealon has no approved human medical indication in the jurisdictions we track. Any use is outside an approved label.

Human research

Each entry states what the study found and, separately, what it cannot show.

  • Human open-label2015

    Synthetic Pinealon and Vesugen in adults with polymorbidity and organic brain syndrome: no control group described, and figures not given

    Finding. The abstract names the compounds as "short synthetic tripeptides vesugen and pinealon", so this is the synthetic peptide and not a cortex extract. They were given to adults aged 41-83 with polymorbidity and organic brain syndrome in remission. The authors report that both preparations had "the significant anabolic effect", improved central nervous system activity and slowed the rate of ageing on biological-age indicators. They also state that "Vesugen has demonstrated more visible geroprophylactic effect than Pinealon." The same abstract reports two possible harm signals. The first is prooxidant activity measured by chemiluminescence. The second is a fall in CD34+ haematopoietic cells in blood, which the authors call "significant inhibition of hemopoiesis", adding: "Apparently, the cells have not been involved in the adaptive reactions." Neither signal is attributed to one peptide rather than the other. The authors found no effect on chromatin condensation and conclude "so they are safe on nuclear genetic level", while saying this property should be studied in future. The abstract prints no outcome figures or p-values.

    Limitation. Which group did the work cannot be settled from the record. Neither PubMed nor Europe PMC prints an affiliation, and no Khavinson or St Petersburg Institute of Bioregulation and Gerontology author is listed. Two of the authors, Meshchaninov VN and Tkachenko EL, appear on a 2016 paper (PMID 28539017) whose printed affiliations are Ural State Medical University and the Institute of Medical Cell Technologies in Ekaterinburg. That suggests, but does not establish, a group outside St Petersburg. The abstract does not say who supplied the peptides or who funded the work. It describes no control group, and it does not say how participants were allocated or whether anyone was blinded. We have typed the study as open-label because the investigators gave the peptides and the abstract describes no comparison arm or masking. The abstract uses neither term, and the full text may describe a comparison group. The participant count does not add up: the abstract prints "32 people (18 men, 12 women)", and 18 plus 12 is 30, so no participant figure is carried here. Pinealon and Vesugen were studied together, and apart from the one comparative sentence the abstract does not separate their effects. This is a Russian-language article, and everything above is read from its English abstract; we have not read the full text. It does not replicate any specific finding from the originating group.

Preclinical research

Animal and laboratory work. Useful for generating hypotheses; it cannot establish that something works in people.

  • Animal2012

    Pinealon given to pregnant rats with methionine-induced hyperhomocysteinaemia: effects on the offspring

    Finding. Pregnant rats were given a methionine-loaded diet to induce hyperhomocysteinaemia, and some were also given pinealon, identified by sequence as "pinealon (Glu-Asp-Arg)". The authors report that the offspring of pinealon-treated dams showed better spatial orientation and learning ability, with cognitive function "improved significantly". In neurons isolated from the offspring's cerebellum they report lower accumulation of reactive oxygen species and fewer necrotic cells. The authors conclude that the experiment confirms pinealon's neuroprotective properties, in agreement with their own earlier in-vitro data.

    Limitation. This comes from the originating St Petersburg group. Khavinson V and Kozina L are listed at the Institute of Bioregulation and Gerontology, NWB RAMS, St Petersburg. Their co-authors are at the D.O. Ott Institute of Obstetrics and Gynecology in St Petersburg, the Research Center of Neurology in Moscow and Lomonosov Moscow State University. The authors describe the result as agreeing with "previous data obtained by us in vitro", so it confirms their own earlier work and has not been tested by an unconnected group. The abstract gives no animal numbers, effect sizes or p-values, and it does not say whether the behavioural assessment was blinded. The model is prenatal hyperhomocysteinaemia in the offspring of treated dams, not ageing or direct treatment of adult brain tissue. All of this is read from the abstract; we have not read the full text.

Potential safety concerns

  • CautionInsufficient

    No systematic human safety dataset we could inspect. Very short peptides are often assumed benign on the basis of size alone, which is an assumption rather than a finding.

  • CautionInsufficient

    If the nuclear gene-expression mechanism is real, its long-term consequences would need study. If it is not real, the compound does nothing. Both possibilities argue for evidence before use, and neither has been resolved.

Known interactions and contraindication considerations

  • Uncharacterised in accessible literature.

This list is not exhaustive and is not a substitute for a clinician reviewing your full medication history.

Regulatory status

Status is shown per jurisdiction and is accurate only as of the date stated. Where a compound is approved, the approval is bound to a specific formulation, manufacturer and indication — shown in the detail column.

Russian Federation
Ministry of Health / Roszdravnadzor
Listed
as of 11 Aug 2026

Marketed in Russia, generally in a supplement or parapharmaceutical category rather than as a registered medicine. Certificate details in circulation could not be verified: the same number appears against different products on the manufacturer's own materials, and they follow a format from a registration regime since superseded.

United States
FDA
Unapproved / investigational
as of 11 Aug 2026

No marketing authorisation. The FDA has not evaluated this compound — that is an absence of any opinion, not a negative finding.

European Union
EMA
Unapproved / investigational
as of 11 Aug 2026

No marketing authorisation.

India
CDSCO
Unapproved / investigational
as of 11 Aug 2026

Not approved for human use. A first-time synthetically manufactured peptide falls under the new-drug pathway.

How it is being used

What the grey community actually runs, the reasoning they give, and our read on whether it follows from known biology. This is observation, not evidence, and not a recommendation.

No community use documented for this compound yet. Absence here means our editorial team has not reviewed and verified a pattern — not that none exists.

Active clinical trials

No registered trials currently tracked for Pinealon.

Search all tracked trials

What remains unknown

The questions that would change our assessment if they were answered.

  • Can any of the central findings be replicated by a group with no connection to the originating institute?
  • Does a peptide this short reach the nucleus intact in a human?
  • Is tissue specificity demonstrated, or inferred from the tissue each peptide was derived from?

References

  1. 1.Meshchaninov VN, Tkachenko EL, Zharkov SV, et al. [Effect of synthetic peptides on aging of patients with chronic polymorbidity and organic brain syndrome of the central nervous system in remission]. Adv Gerontol. 2015;28(1):62-7.PMID 26390612
  2. 2.Arutjunyan A, Kozina L, Stvolinskiy S, et al. Pinealon protects the rat offspring from prenatal hyperhomocysteinemia. Int J Clin Exp Med. 2012;5(2):179-85.PMID 22567179

Editorial change history

When we change a grade or a regulatory note, we log it here rather than editing quietly.

  • Dossier created. All registration certificate numbers and all trial figures excluded as unverifiable. Graded on absence of independent replication, not on country of origin.

  • Replaced the placeholder human entry (pinealon-h1) with Meshchaninov et al. 2015 (PMID 26390612). This is a Russian-language report, read from its English abstract, on the synthetic tripeptides Pinealon and Vesugen given together to 30-32 adults with organic brain syndrome. The abstract's participant count is internally inconsistent, so no number is carried. The study is typed open-label on the basis that no control group is described; the abstract does not itself state the design, and the entry says so. The group affiliation is unresolved. Added the first preclinical entry, Arutjunyan et al. 2012 (PMID 22567179), an originating-group rat study of prenatal hyperhomocysteinaemia that states the Glu-Asp-Arg sequence. The listed sequence was confirmed against three primary abstracts and is unchanged. The evidence summary now names the outside and adjacent work: the Ekaterinburg group, the Rostov-on-Don South Federal University group (which is linked to the originating institute through co-authorship) and a 2026 preprint. It also notes one occupational-comparison report that prints p-values. The grade stays insufficient, because none of this work replicates a specific originating-group finding. The CD34+ and prooxidant findings are to be carried into safetySignals as a reported, unquantified caution, observed with Pinealon and Vesugen co-administered and not attributed to either peptide.

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