Handling
Handling and storing research peptides
Store sealed, dry and cold. Freeze-drying removes the water that most degradation pathways require, so a sealed desiccated vial is stable at ambient temperature in transit and is held refrigerated or frozen long-term, at the temperature stated on that lot's certificate.
The six things that matter
- Keep the seal intact. Leave the stopper seated and the crimp undisturbed until the material is needed. An unopened vial is the condition every stability statement on a certificate refers to.
- Leave the desiccant in place. Lyophilized powder is hygroscopic and will draw water out of humid air. The desiccant keeps the vial's headspace dry, which is what preserves the dryness freeze-drying achieved.
- Store at the temperature on the certificate. Storage conditions are stated per lot on that lot's certificate of analysis. Lower temperatures slow degradation, which is why long-term storage is refrigerated or frozen even for material that ships at ambient.
- Keep the vial in its carton. Light matters for sequences containing tryptophan, tyrosine, methionine or cysteine, and for metal-complexed peptides. An outer carton or amber glass addresses it.
- Inspect on receipt. Check that the vial and crimp are intact, the desiccant is present, and the lot number on the label matches the certificate you look up. A vial failing any of these has a history you cannot describe.
- Record the lot number. Note the lot number against your own records so the certificate for that specific vial stays retrievable later.
Why lyophilized material is stable at all
Hydrolysis of the peptide bond, deamidation of asparagine and glutamine residues, and most oxidation pathways all need water as a medium or a participant. Removing it does not slow those reactions so much as deprive them of what they run in. That is the entire reason lyophilized powder is the standard supply form, and the reason shipments travel at ambient temperature rather than on ice.
The longer explanation is in what lyophilized peptides are and how to store research peptides.
What this page does not cover
Reconstitution. We do not provide dosing, administration or reconstitution guidance for human or animal use, in any channel. That is a fixed boundary rather than an omission, and it is set out on the research use only page.
Compounds with a distinct handling profile
Most compounds are covered entirely by the guidance above — storage is a property of the physical form more than of the sequence. These eight have something specific worth knowing: a coordinated metal, a recombinant protein, stereochemistry that mass spectrometry cannot verify, a name used for two different molecules, or a vial that is mostly not peptide.
For laboratory research use only. Not for human or veterinary consumption.