What Vilon Is
Vilon is a synthetic dipeptide, Lys-Glu, and one of the shortest members of the peptide bioregulator family. At two residues it sits at the extreme short end even within a family defined by brevity, and it is associated in the published literature with thymic and immune tissue.
It also has something most compounds in this family lack: a body of published animal work that names it directly, including long-term carcinogenesis studies. That makes it one of the few bioregulators where specific claims can be traced to specific experiments.
Research use only. Vilon is supplied for laboratory research. It is not for human or veterinary use, holds no marketing authorisation in any jurisdiction, and nothing below is guidance for administration.
What the Published Studies Report
Spontaneous tumour development and lifespan in mice
The most cited work reports that the synthetic dipeptide inhibited growth of spontaneous tumours and increased lifespan in mice (Khavinson et al., Dokl Biol Sci 2000, PMID 10944717). This is a whole-animal, long-duration design rather than a cell-culture endpoint, which is why it anchors most later discussion of the compound.
Induced carcinogenesis models
Two independent reports from the same group extend the observation to chemically induced models: an inhibitory effect on development of induced urinary bladder tumours in rats (Pliss et al., Bull Exp Biol Med 2001, PMID 11586406) and an effect on 1,2-dimethylhydrazine-induced neoplasia (Pliss et al., Vopr Onkol 2005, PMID 16308980).
Read these as what they are: rodent chemoprevention models in a specific induction paradigm. They describe an effect on tumour development under experimental induction. They do not establish an effect in any other species or context.
Gene expression
The mechanistic link to the wider family comes from a DNA-microarray study examining the effects of Vilon and Epithalon on gene expression in mouse heart (Anisimov et al., Bull Exp Biol Med 2002, PMID 12360356). It is one of the earlier attempts to test the transcriptional-regulation hypothesis directly rather than infer it from phenotype, and it is why Vilon is usually discussed alongside Epithalon.
Immune and haemostatic parameters
A later report examined immune status and coagulation haemostasis across age groups in diabetes mellitus (Kuznik et al., Adv Gerontol 2007, PMID 18306698). This is the study most often cited for the compound's thymic and immune association.
Reading the Evidence Honestly
Three qualifications belong with every summary above.
The literature is concentrated. Most of it comes from the St Petersburg group and its collaborators, and much appears in Russian-language journals. Concentration is not the same as unreliability, but it means independent replication is limited and should not be assumed.
The models are animal models. Rodent chemoprevention and lifespan designs are informative for mechanism generation. They do not transfer to other species without work that has not been done.
There is no established amount for any use. No controlled human programme exists, so there is no published figure to report. Where the literature reports nothing for a context, that absence is the finding rather than a gap to fill by analogy with a related peptide.
Structure and Laboratory Handling
- Sequence. Lys-Glu — a dipeptide, among the shortest compounds in the family.
- Form. Lyophilised powder. Store the sealed vial at −20 °C, protected from light.
- Reconstitution. Introduce bacteriostatic water down the vial wall rather than onto the powder cake. Do not shake — peptide solutions foam readily and agitation promotes aggregation.
- After reconstitution. Refrigerate at 2–8 °C. Reconstituted solution has materially shorter working stability than the lyophilised powder.
- Concentration. Vial mass divided by diluent volume; our reconstitution calculator performs the arithmetic and converts to insulin-syringe units.
Where Vilon Sits in the Family
Vilon is the thymic and immune member of the bioregulator set. Thymalin shares that association and has its own literature; Epithalon is the pineal and telomere-associated member it is most often studied beside. For the family as a whole — the proposed gene-expression mechanism, the cytomax versus cytogen distinction, and the full catalog by physiological system — see our peptide bioregulator overview.
For background on handling lyophilised material see lyophilised peptides: what researchers need to know, and for the meaning of the research-use designation see what “for research use only” means.