Everything below concerns PTMA gene. We keep the language plain, cite what the science says, and separate well-supported claims from open questions.
Last reviewed on 2026-01-29. Where a claim depends on a specific study, the study is described rather than over-claimed.
20世纪70年代，研究者从胸腺提取物中纯化出多种小肽，Tα1是其中被较早表征的一种。最初的制备依赖组织匀浆和层析步骤，产量低且成分复杂。随着固相肽合成技术成熟，实验室和工业界能够生产与天然序列一致的合成版本。合成肽的纯度可达95%以上，并可通过反相高效液相色谱和质谱进行鉴定。这一转变使研究不再依赖动物胸腺来源。
市售的胸腺素α1通常以冻干粉形式提供，溶解后用于注射。其氨基酸组成包括多个酸性残基，因此在中性pH下带负电荷。该肽可溶于水和生理盐水，但在有机溶剂中溶解度有限。储存条件通常为冻干状态下负20摄氏度，溶解后需冷藏并避免反复冻融。常见的同义词包括胸腺肽α1、thymalfasin和Tα1。
Thymosin alpha 1 was identified in 1977 as a component of thymosin fraction 5, a heterogeneous preparation used in early studies of thymic function. Investigators purified the active material and determined its amino acid sequence, which enabled chemical synthesis. Work in the following decades concentrated on T-cell maturation and immune reconstitution in animals and small human cohorts. Early preparations varied in composition, so results from that period are difficult to compare with studies using defined synthetic peptide.
Clinical research has examined the peptide in chronic hepatitis B and C, as a vaccine adjuvant, and in sepsis and oncology settings. Findings across trials are mixed; some report changes in selected immune markers, while others find no clear clinical benefit. Many studies are small and define outcomes differently, which limits comparison. Regulatory approval is confined to a few countries, and the compound is not an approved drug in the United States or most of Europe.
| Property | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 化学分类 | 线性肽 | 由28个氨基酸组成 |
| 分子量 | 约3108 Da | 合成版本一致 |
| 外观 | 白色至类白色粉末 | 冻干品 |
| 溶解度 | 易溶于水 | 微溶于有机溶剂 |
| 储存温度 | -20°C（冻干） | 溶解后2-8°C |
Thymosin alpha 1 is a short peptide first isolated from bovine thymus tissue in the early 1970s during fractionation work aimed at identifying factors that influence T cell development. It belongs to a family of acidic thymic peptides, and the original preparations contained several components that were later separated by chromatography. The compound is now produced synthetically rather than extracted from tissue, which removes batch variability tied to animal sourcing. Researchers describe it as an immunomodulatory peptide because laboratory studies show effects on several cell types of the innate and adaptive immune systems.
The molecule consists of 28 amino acid residues with an acetyl group attached to the N-terminal serine. Its sequence is acidic overall, with several glutamic and aspartic acid residues distributed along the chain and no cysteine, so disulfide bridges do not form. The peptide carries a net negative charge at physiological pH. Because the N-terminus is blocked, the intact molecule resists degradation by many aminopeptidases, which contributes to its stability in biological fluids.
The peptide is generated in cells by cleavage of prothymosin alpha, a larger acidic protein encoded by the PTMA gene. Prothymosin alpha is expressed in many tissues, not only in the thymus, and its functions include nuclear roles in chromatin-related processes. The 28-residue fragment corresponds to the N-terminal portion of that precursor. How the cleavage occurs and how the fragment's concentration is regulated remain open questions; circulating amounts are small and difficult to measure reliably with routine assays.
Thymosin alpha-1 is a synthetic peptide of 28 amino acids whose sequence matches the amino-terminal region of prothymosin alpha. The chain is acetylated at its first residue and contains one disulfide bridge between two cysteine residues, which folds the molecule into a compact loop. Its molecular formula, C129H215N33O55, corresponds to a monoisotopic mass of roughly 3,106 daltons. Material used in laboratories is made by solid-phase synthesis rather than isolated from animal tissue.
Early work on thymic extracts in the 1960s described a heat-stable acidic fraction containing many polypeptides. Separation of that mixture yielded individual components, and thymosin alpha-1 was named as one of them on the basis of assays for T-cell activity. The first preparations came from calf thymus, while subsequent research and clinical material has been chemically synthesized. Nomenclature in older papers is inconsistent, and the same peptide sometimes appears under different designations, which complicates literature searches.
Immune signaling studies link thymosin alpha 1 to Toll-like receptor pathways, particularly TLR2 and TLR9, on dendritic cells and other antigen-presenting cells. Activation of these receptors promotes maturation of T cells and increases natural killer cell activity. The peptide shifts cytokine output toward a T helper 1 profile, raising interferon gamma and interleukin 2 while modulating interleukin 10. Whether these effects translate into clinical benefit for any specific disease remains a subject of debate. Reported outcomes vary across trials and populations.
Thymosin alpha 1 is approved as a medicine in several countries, including Italy and China, for indications such as chronic hepatitis B and as an immune adjuvant. It is not approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration as a therapeutic product. In research settings the peptide appears in studies of sepsis, vaccine response, and oncology support, often with mixed or inconclusive results. The evidence base is uneven, and reviews note that many trials were small. Regulatory status therefore differs widely between jurisdictions.
==== Torture and abuse at Camp Mercury ==== In September 2005, a Human Rights Watch report alleged that residents of Fallujah called the 1st Battalion, 504th Infantry Regiment "the Murderous Maniacs," based on their treatment of Iraqis in detention. According to accounts of 82nd Airborne officers and NCOs, members of the battalion in 2003–2004 routinely used physical and mental torture as a means of intelligence gathering and for stress relief. According to the report, these battalion members estimated "...that about half of the detainees at Camp Mercury were released because they were not involved in the insurgency, but they left with the physical and mental scars of torture." After reporting these abuses yet being ignored by his superiors for 17 months, a then-anonymous captain took his allegations to three senior Republican senators—Bill Frist, John McCain, and John Warner—before the Army was finally compelled to launch an investigation. It was only after his report to the senators that action was taken. A staffer for one of them later told TIME magazine that the captain's claims were "extremely credible." The 1st Battalion, 504th Infantry Regiment's torture and abuse of prisoners later inspired the passage of the Detainee Treatment Act, and the anonymous captain was later revealed to be Ian Fishback. When Ian Fishback died in 2021, Senator Dick Durbin called Ian Fishback a military hero, saying:
=== Earlier leaks === In 1976, two local trade unions complained of pollution within the plant. In 1981, a worker was accidentally splashed with phosgene as he was carrying out a maintenance job of the plant's pipes. In a panic, he removed his gas mask and inhaled a large amount of toxic phosgene gas, leading to his death 72 hours later. Following these events, journalist Rajkumar Keswani began investigating and published his findings in Bhopal's local paper Rapat, in which he urged "Wake up, people of Bhopal, you are on the edge of a volcano." In January 1982, a phosgene leak exposed 24 workers, all of whom were admitted to a hospital. None of the workers had been ordered to wear protective equipment. One month later in February 1982, an MIC leak affected 18 workers. In August 1982, a chemical engineer came into contact with liquid MIC, resulting in burns over 30% of his body. In October 1982, there was another MIC leak. In attempting to stop the leak, the MIC supervisor suffered severe chemical burns and two other workers were severely exposed to the gases. During 1983 and 1984, there were leaks of MIC, chlorine, monomethylamine, phosgene, and carbon tetrachloride, sometimes in combination.
There are a number of studies that have been conducted to determine research and development costs: notably, recent studies from DiMasi and Wouters suggest pre-approval capitalized cost estimates of $2.6 billion and $1.1 billion, respectively. The figures differ significantly based on methodologies, sampling and timeframe examined. Several other studies looking into specific therapeutic areas or disease types suggest as low as $291 million for orphan drugs, $648 million for cancer drugs or as high as $1.8 billion for cell and gene therapies. The average cost (2013 dollars) of each stage of clinical research was US$25 million for a Phase I safety study, $59 million for a Phase II randomized controlled efficacy study, and $255 million for a pivotal Phase III trial to demonstrate its equivalence or superiority to an existing approved drug, possibly as high as $345 million. The average cost of conducting a 2015–16 pivotal Phase III trial on an infectious disease drug candidate was $22 million. The full cost of bringing a new drug (i.e., new chemical entity) to market—from discovery through clinical trials to approval—is complex and controversial. In a 2016 review of 106 drug candidates assessed through clinical trials, the total capital expenditure for a manufacturer having a drug approved through successful Phase III trials was $2.6 billion (in 2013 dollars), an amount increasing at an annual rate of 8.5%.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
=== Flowers and berries === When A. chilensis flowers at the end of spring, the white flowers are unisexual and small, eventually yielding a small edible fruit. The small purple-black berries that form are approximately 4 to 6 millimetres (0.16 to 0.24 in) in diameter and contain 4 to 8 angled seeds. A seven-year-old tree can produce up to 10 kilograms (22 lb) of berries per year. With fruit that tastes similar to blackberries, the species is known as the Chilean wineberry, and locally in Spanish as maqui or maque.
== Negative effects == Tonic water is known to cause fixed eruptions, which is a type of skin reaction to drugs, due to the quinine content. Various scientific journals have reported that repeated intake of tonic water can cause fixed eruptions with varying severity, with one reporting the onset of Stevens–Johnson syndrome. The cases of fixed eruptions were seen after the patients drank tonic water, by itself or mixed with gin. Some symptoms of fixed eruptions include pigmented macules, high fever, erythematous plaques, and bullae. Quinine acts as a neuromuscular blocker; consequently, the consumption of tonic water can exacerbate muscle weakness in individuals with myasthenia gravis.
=== Ribbon machine === Corning continued developing automated bulb-production machines, installing the Ribbon Machine in 1926 in its Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, factory. The Ribbon Machine surpassed any previous attempts to automate bulb production and was used to produce incandescent bulbs into the 21st century. The inventor, William Woods, along with his colleague at Corning Glass Works, David E. Gray, had created a machine that by 1939 was producing 1,000 bulbs per minute. The Ribbon Machine works by passing a continuous ribbon of glass along a conveyor belt, heated in a furnace, and then blown by precisely aligned air nozzles through holes in the conveyor belt into molds. Thus the glass bulbs or envelopes are created. A typical machine can produce 50,000 to 120,000 bulbs per hour, depending on the size of the bulb. By the 1970s, 15 ribbon machines installed in factories around the world produced the entire supply of incandescent bulbs. The filament and its supports are assembled on a glass stem, which is then fused to the bulb. The air is pumped out of the bulb, and the evacuation tube in the stem press is sealed by a flame. The bulb is then inserted into the lamp base, and the whole assembly tested. The 2016 closing of Osram-Sylvania's Wellsboro, Pennsylvania plant meant that one of the last remaining ribbon machines in the United States was shut down.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
Boston Pizza (branded as Boston's Restaurant & Sports Bar outside of Canada) has franchised 396 restaurants in North America. Boston Pizza International Inc. was Canada's number one casual dining brand with more than 340 restaurants in Canada and system-wide sales of $831 million in 2008. Annually, Boston Pizza serves more than 40 million guests. The first Boston Pizza location was opened in Edmonton, Alberta in 1964 by Gus Agioritis under the name "Boston Pizza and Spaghetti House". It took 32 years to open its first 100 locations, and eight years for the next 100. The current owners of the restaurant chain, Jim Treliving and George Melville, purchased the company in 1983, 15 years after Treliving bought his first franchise, and 10 years after he first partnered with Melville. Store sales growth has averaged 6.3% for the last decade compared to the industry average of 2.2%.
=== Elsewhere === Benjamin Franklin was the first American to mention tofu, in a 1770 letter to John Bartram. Franklin, who encountered it during a trip to London, included a few soybeans and referred to it as "cheese" from China. In 1770, Franklin also corresponded with James Flint on the subject of how the Chinese converted callivances (soybeans) into tofu. Flint's writing "Towfu" in his letter is the earliest documented use of "tofu" in the English language. The first tofu company in the United States was established in 1878. In 1908, Li Yuying, a Chinese anarchist and a vegetarian with a French degree in agriculture and biology, opened a soy factory, the Usine de la Caséo-Sojaïne. This was the world's first soy dairy and the first factory in France to manufacture and sell beancurd. However, tofu was not well known to most Westerners before the middle of the 20th century, when it was popularized in the United States by William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi (The Book of Tofu, 1975).
A geroprotector aims to affect the root cause of aging and age-related diseases, and thus prolong the life span of animals. Some possible geroprotectors include melatonin, carnosine, metformin, rapamycin, nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN), delta sleep-inducing peptide,glycine, and psilocin. Geroprotectors could belong to multiple classes, depending on which of the hallmarks of aging they influence. The distinction between geroprotectors and senotherapeutics is an evolving area of aging research. Geroprotectors broadly aim to target multiple mechanisms of aging, prolonging lifespan and healthspan by addressing the fundamental causes of aging. Senotherapeutics, on the other hand, are a subset of therapies that specifically target senescent cells, which are dysfunctional cells that accumulate with age and contribute to inflammation and age-related diseases.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org
它不是经典的内分泌激素，而是一种免疫调节肽。其作用主要通过局部免疫细胞间的信号传递实现，而非经血液循环作用于远隔器官。
天然胸腺素α1主要从胸腺组织提取，也可在脾脏和淋巴结中检出。目前研究和临床使用的多为化学合成版本，不再依赖动物组织。
胸腺素组分5是牛胸腺提取物的粗组分，包含多种肽。胸腺素α1是其中一种被纯化和表征的单一肽，具有明确的28个氨基酸序列。
Trials differ in patient population, dose schedule, background treatment, and the endpoints used to judge success. Many are small and single-center, so random variation can dominate the reported effects.