DSIP: Research, Handling and Batch Documentation

Identity and research status

Also referred to as

Delta Sleep-Inducing Peptide, WAGGDASGE

Sequence

Trp-Ala-Gly-Gly-Asp-Ala-Ser-Gly-Glu (WAGGDASGE)

Molecular Formula

C35H48N10O15

Molecular Weight

848.8 g/mol

CAS Number

62568-57-4

PubChem CID

68816

UNII

YN28Z5YZ73

International Nonproprietary Name

Emideltide

Amino Acid Count

9, three of them glycine

Charge Character

Acidic. Asp5, Glu9 and the free C-terminal carboxyl carry the charge, and there is no lysine, arginine or histidine anywhere in the chain.

Active Isomer

Only the alpha-aspartyl peptide is active in the rabbit EEG assay. The beta-Asp isomer, which forms readily at Asp5 through aspartimide rearrangement, is not.

Chromophore

Trp1 is the single aromatic residue, giving one absorbance maximum near 280 nm and one oxidation-sensitive side chain

Principal Analogue

P-DSIP, phosphorylated on Ser7

Species of Origin

Isolated from rabbit cerebral venous blood. No gene, precursor or receptor has been identified in any species.

Appearance

White to off-white lyophilized powder

Solubility

Freely soluble in water and in bacteriostatic water

CAS number

62568-57-4

Mechanism, in brief

DSIP has no identified receptor. This is not a gap in the summaries, it is a gap in the primary literature: Graf and Kastin wrote in their 1986 update that several mechanisms had been proposed and that no convincing evidence had been obtained for any of them, and Kovalzon and Strekalova restated the same position in the Journal of Neurochemistry twenty years later. A reader should treat every mechanism below as a reproducible pharmacological observation whose molecular target is unknown.

1. Circulation and transport. Radioiodinated N-Tyr-DSIP crosses the rat blood-brain barrier and was used by Banks and Kastin as a tracer peptide in barrier permeability work, including the 1983 Lancet report that aluminium chloride raised its entry by 60 to 70%. Native DSIP is degraded rapidly in whole blood.
2. Pituitary-level HPA modulation. Attenuates CRF-stimulated corticosterone release in rats without affecting the response to exogenous ACTH, placing the effect upstream of the adrenal and at or above the corticotroph.
3. Alpha-1 adrenergic modulation in the pineal. Shifts the N-acetyltransferase response of rat pinealocytes to norepinephrine in a prazosin-sensitive manner, the only mechanism for which a receptor class has been named.
4. Opioid-pathway dependency. The slow-wave and memory effects reported for DSIP and its phosphorylated analogue are reversed by naloxone, which constrains the pathway without identifying a binding site.
5. Mitochondrial coupling. Raises state 3 respiration and the respiratory control ratio in isolated rat brain mitochondria and protects those parameters under hypoxia, a mechanism with no obvious relation to the sleep hypothesis.

The full research write-up, including the findings behind each claim and the model each came from, is on the DSIP 10mg 10mg page.

Vial sizes available

Every size of DSIP Volta lists, in stock or not. Each is a separate catalogue page with its own batch number and specification table.

• DSIP 10mg 10mgBatch #: VPDS10100
  In stock

Purity and batch documentation

Volta's release specification is >99% (HPLC). That is a threshold we set. >99% is the specification every batch is released to. The figure on a certificate is what a laboratory measured for one lot.

No third-party certificate has been published for DSIPyet. The certificates Volta does publish, with the laboratory's own verification link on each, are in the certificate archive.

Research on DSIP

Handling and stability

Regulatory context

United States

Not FDA-approved. Removed from FDA Category 2 on April 15, 2026. PCAC review scheduled July 23-24, 2026. Previously classified as Category 2, prohibiting compounding. Research chemical.

Canada

Not approved by Health Canada.

United Kingdom

Not MHRA-approved.

• the legal status of research peptides in Canada
• Health Canada's regulatory position

Primary sources

1. Schoenenberger GA, Maier PF, Tobler HJ, Wilson K, Monnier M. The delta EEG (sleep)-inducing peptide (DSIP). XI. Amino-acid analysis, sequence, synthesis and activity of the nonapeptide. Pflugers Archiv European Journal of Physiology (1978). doi:10.1007/BF00581575
2. Monnier VM. Synthesis of the tripeptide L-Trp-L-Ser-L-Glu. Comparison of its biological activity with that of the delta-sleep-inducing-peptide (DSIP). Experientia Supplementum (1977). PMID 891716
3. Graf MV, Kastin AJ. Delta-sleep-inducing peptide (DSIP): a review. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews (1984). doi:10.1016/0149-7634(84)90022-8
4. Graf MV, Kastin AJ. Delta-sleep-inducing peptide (DSIP): an update. Peptides (1986). doi:10.1016/0196-9781(86)90148-8
5. Kovalzon VM, Strekalova TV. Delta sleep-inducing peptide (DSIP): a still unresolved riddle. Journal of Neurochemistry (2006). doi:10.1111/j.1471-4159.2006.03693.x
6. Tobler I, Borbely AA. Effect of delta sleep inducing peptide (DSIP) and arginine vasotocin (AVT) on sleep and motor activity in the rat. Waking and Sleeping (1980). PMID 7405185
7. Susic V, Masirevic G, Totic S. The effects of delta-sleep-inducing peptide (DSIP) on wakefulness and sleep patterns in the cat. Brain Research (1987). doi:10.1016/0006-8993(87)90006-0
8. Schneider-Helmert D, Schoenenberger GA. The influence of synthetic DSIP (delta-sleep-inducing-peptide) on disturbed human sleep. Experientia (1981). doi:10.1007/BF01971753
9. Monti JM, Debellis J, Alterwain P, Pellejero T, Monti D. Study of delta sleep-inducing peptide efficacy in improving sleep on short-term administration to chronic insomniacs. International Journal of Clinical Pharmacology Research (1987). PMID 3583493
10. Bes F, Hofman W, Schuur J, Van Boxtel C. Effects of delta sleep-inducing peptide on sleep of chronic insomniac patients. A double-blind study. Neuropsychobiology (1992). doi:10.1159/000118919
11. Graf MV, Kastin AJ, Coy DH, Fischman AJ. Delta-sleep-inducing peptide reduces CRF-induced corticosterone release. Neuroendocrinology (1985). doi:10.1159/000124200
12. Graf MV, Schoenenberger GA. Delta sleep-inducing peptide modulates the stimulation of rat pineal N-acetyltransferase activity by involving the alpha 1-adrenergic receptor. Journal of Neurochemistry (1987). doi:10.1111/j.1471-4159.1987.tb05654.x
13. Graf MV, Saegesser B, Schoenenberger GA. Degradation and aggregation of delta sleep-inducing peptide (DSIP) and two analogs in plasma and serum. Peptides (1987). doi:10.1016/0196-9781(87)90031-3
14. Kimura M, Inoue S. The phosphorylated analogue of DSIP enhances slow wave sleep and paradoxical sleep in unrestrained rats. Psychopharmacology (1989). doi:10.1007/BF00443409
15. Kovalzon VM. Hypnogenic properties of DSIP peptide analogs: structural-functional relationship. Izvestiia Akademii Nauk Seriia Biologicheskaia (2001). PMID 11525128
16. Kovalzon VM, Kalikhevich VN, Churkina SI. Active analog of the inactive sleep peptide. Bulletin of Experimental Biology and Medicine (1986). PMID 3730559
17. Charnay Y, Bouras C, Vallet PG, Golaz J, Guntern R, Constantinidis J. Immunohistochemical distribution of delta sleep inducing peptide in the rabbit brain and hypophysis. Neuroendocrinology (1989). doi:10.1159/000125110
18. Skagerberg G, Bjartell A, Vallet PG, Charnay Y. Immunocytochemical demonstration of DSIP-like immunoreactivity in the hypothalamus of the rat. Peptides (1991). doi:10.1016/0196-9781(91)90074-y
19. Ernst A, Cramer H, Strubel D, Kuntzmann F, Schoenenberger GA. Comparison of DSIP- and P-DSIP-like immunoreactivity in cerebrospinal fluid of patients with senile dementia of Alzheimer type, multi-infarct syndrome, communicating hydrocephalus and Parkinson's disease. Journal of Neurology (1987). doi:10.1007/BF00314191
20. van Kammen DP, Widerlov E, Neylan TC, Ekman R, Kelley ME, Mouton A, Peters JL. Delta sleep-inducing-peptide-like immunoreactivity (DSIP-LI) and delta sleep in schizophrenic volunteers. Sleep (1992). doi:10.1093/sleep/15.6.519
21. Westrin A, Ekman R, Traskman-Bendz L. High delta sleep-inducing peptide-like immunoreactivity in plasma in suicidal patients with major depressive disorder. Biological Psychiatry (1998). doi:10.1016/s0006-3223(97)00254-0
22. Dick P, Grandjean ME, Tissot R. Successful treatment of withdrawal symptoms with delta sleep-inducing peptide, a neuropeptide with potential agonistic activity on opiate receptors. Neuropsychobiology (1983). doi:10.1159/000118012
23. Dick P, Costa C, Fayolle K, Grandjean ME, Khoshbeen A, Tissot R. DSIP in the treatment of withdrawal syndromes from alcohol and opiates. European Neurology (1984). doi:10.1159/000115715
24. Schneider-Helmert D. Effects of DSIP on narcolepsy. European Neurology (1984). doi:10.1159/000115713
25. Khvatova EM, Samartzev VN, Zagoskin PP, Prudchenko IA, Mikhaleva II. Delta sleep inducing peptide (DSIP): effect on respiration activity in rat brain mitochondria and stress protective potency under experimental hypoxia. Peptides (2003). doi:10.1016/s0196-9781(03)00040-8
26. Roy K, Chauhan G, Kumari P, Wadhwa M, Alam S, Ray K, Panjwani U, Kishore K. Phosphorylated delta sleep inducing peptide restores spatial memory and p-CREB expression by improving sleep architecture at high altitude. Life Sciences (2018). doi:10.1016/j.lfs.2018.08.026
27. Tukhovskaya EA, Ismailova AM, Shaykhutdinova ER, Slashcheva GA, Prudchenko IA, Mikhaleva II, Khokhlova ON, Murashev AN, Ivanov VT. Delta Sleep-Inducing Peptide Recovers Motor Function in SD Rats after Focal Stroke. Molecules (2021). doi:10.3390/molecules26175173
28. Gimble JM, Ptitsyn AA, Goh BC, Hebert T, Yu G, Wu X, Zvonic S, Shi XM, Floyd ZE. Delta sleep-inducing peptide and glucocorticoid-induced leucine zipper: potential links between circadian mechanisms and obesity?. Obesity Reviews (2009). doi:10.1111/j.1467-789X.2009.00661.x
29. Banks WA, Kastin AJ. Aluminium increases permeability of the blood-brain barrier to labelled DSIP and beta-endorphin: possible implications for senile and dialysis dementia. The Lancet (1983). doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(83)91273-4
30. Voitenkov VB, Popovich IG, Zabezhinskii MA, Yurova MA, Piskunova TA, Mikhaleva II. Effect of delta-sleep inducing peptide preparation Deltaran on longevity, physiological functions, and carcinogenesis in mice. Advances in Gerontology (2009). PMID 20405733
31. National Center for Biotechnology Information. Delta sleep-inducing peptide, PubChem Compound Summary CID 68816. PubChem (2026)