On this page
What it is
A 3-amino-acid peptide (Ala-Glu-Asp) from the Khavinson short peptide series, in which each sequence is proposed to act on a specific tissue — here cartilage and connective. 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. Cartalax 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.
No adequate published human research. This absence is the reason for the evidence grade above — it is not a gap we can fill with animal data.
Preclinical research
Animal and laboratory work. Useful for generating hypotheses; it cannot establish that something works in people.
- In vitro2023
Chondrogenic markers in replicatively aged human stem cells exposed to the AED tripeptide: cell culture from the originating group
Finding. A cell-culture study in human mesenchymal stem cells undergoing replicative aging. It studied the AED peptide and a cartilage polypeptide complex (CPC). The outcomes were gene expression and protein synthesis of four chondrogenic-differentiation markers: SOX9, aggrecan, type II collagen and COMP. The authors report that AED "activates gene expression and protein synthesis during aging of MSCs" and that CPC "has the same effect". They conclude that the data indicate "the stimulating effect of studied peptides on regulation of chondrogenesis", and they say effectiveness in osteoarthritis models still needs to be investigated. The abstract gives no effect sizes, no replicate numbers and no statistics.
Limitation. The work comes from the originating St Petersburg group. All five authors (Myakisheva, Linkova, Diatlova, Polyakova, Ryzhak) list the Saint-Petersburg Institute of Bioregulation and Gerontology, and some also list the St Petersburg Research Institute of Phthisiopulmonology and Belgorod State National Research University. We found no independent replication, which is the central reason for the grade. This is a cell-culture experiment and says nothing about cartilage, joints or outcomes in a living person. The second agent studied, CPC, is not the AED tripeptide: the same group's 2023 review describes it as a polypeptide complex isolated from animal cartilage tissue that contains AED among its short peptides (PMID 37176122). Only the AED results bear on Cartalax. The abstract does not itself say the AED used was synthesised; treating the AED arm as the Cartalax tripeptide is our inference from the group's other publications. The abstract reports the direction of effect without magnitudes, control details, replicate counts or p-values. The article is in Russian, and we read only the English and Russian abstracts, not the full text. The authors describe testing in osteoarthritis models as a prospect still to come.
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.
| Jurisdiction | Standing | Detail |
|---|---|---|
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 Cartalax.
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
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.
Corrected the sequence from Ala-Glu-Asp-Gly to Ala-Glu-Asp. The old sequence belongs to Epitalon and came in through the shared Khavinson generator. The originating group's own publications name Cartalax as the AED tripeptide (PMIDs 37782637, 37176122), so whatItIs now describes a 3-amino-acid peptide, and the aliases are Ala-Glu-Asp and AED. Removed the generic human placeholder (cartalax-h1) and its placeholder reference. We found no human study that gave the AED tripeptide itself, so humanResearch is now empty. The human-facing reports we did find concern tissue extracts: a cartilage polypeptide complex described as in phase II trials, with no results reported, and Sigumir. Added one in-vitro study from the originating group (PMID 37782646) on chondrogenic markers in aged human mesenchymal stem cells. The grade stays "insufficient" because we still found no independent replication.
Spotted something wrong? Tell us — we publish corrections.