Two products, one name, three letters between them
CJC-1295 is listed two ways across this category: with DAC and without DAC. The three letters are doing a great deal of work. They do not describe a grade, a concentration, or a supplier preference — they describe a chemical difference in the molecule itself, and the two materials have different masses, different chromatographic behaviour, and different documentation.
DAC stands for Drug Affinity Complex. In the material sold under that name, the peptide carries an additional chemical group attached to it — a maleimide-bearing linker designed, in the published work, to form a covalent bond with a carrier protein once it is in a biological system. The material sold without DAC is the peptide chain alone, and is frequently listed under its other name, modified GRF (1-29).
A vial of one is not a substitute for a vial of the other, and the product title is not what tells you which you have.
What each one is
| Listing | Also called | Structure | Approximate mass |
|---|---|---|---|
| CJC-1295 no DAC | Modified GRF (1-29) | 29-residue chain with stabilising substitutions | near 3,360 g/mol |
| CJC-1295 with DAC | CJC-1295 DAC | The same chain plus a maleimidoproprionyl linker | near 3,650 g/mol |
Both are analogues of the first 29 residues of growth-hormone-releasing hormone, carrying substitutions at positions in the native sequence that are, in the published chemistry, the points most vulnerable to enzymatic breakdown. The substitutions are the reason the material is described as modified rather than native.
Treat the masses above as orientation. The certificate for the lot in hand is the authoritative record, and where a report disagrees with this page, the report governs.
How a report tells them apart
The mass difference between the two is roughly 290 units — small relative to the molecules themselves, but far larger than any method's tolerance, so a mass-based identity result separates them without ambiguity. A result near 3,360 describes the chain alone; a result near 3,650 describes the linker-bearing material.
Where identity is reported by retention-time matching instead — written as HPLC-RTM on a certificate — the reference standard is what defines the answer, so the report needs to name which material the standard was. The linker is hydrophobic, which means the DAC-bearing material is retained longer on a reversed-phase column than the plain chain under the same method. Two materials that elute at visibly different times are not hard to distinguish once you know which one the method was set up for.
What to look for on the chromatogram
- A 29-residue chain is a long synthesis. Every coupling step is another chance for a deletion sequence, and deletion products of a long chain elute close to the parent. Peaks immediately adjacent to the main peak are the expected signature here, and their combined size is more informative than the headline percentage on its own.
- For the DAC material, incomplete conjugation is the characteristic impurity. Material that did not receive the linker is chemically the no-DAC peptide — which means an impurity peak in a DAC lot may be a perfectly good molecule that simply is not the one on the label. This is a case where a high purity figure and a correct identity result still leave a question the chromatogram answers.
- Areas should account for the whole run. If the integrated percentages do not total 100, the report should state what was excluded and why.
How to read an HPLC chromatogram covers the plot itself; what a purity percentage means covers how the figure is derived.
Storage of the lyophilized solid
Both materials are supplied as freeze-dried solids and both are governed by the same two conditions: temperature and moisture. Cold storage slows every chemical process available to the molecule, and the solid is hygroscopic, so a vial opened before it has equilibrated to room temperature will draw water out of the air.
The DAC material has one additional consideration. The maleimide group that defines it is a reactive handle by design — that reactivity is the point of the molecule — and reactive groups are, as a class, less forgiving of moisture and warmth over long periods than an unmodified chain. Stability is a documented property rather than an assumed one; where a retest date is stated, the question worth asking is what data supports it. See storing lyophilized research materials.
What the published literature covers
The research record for both materials is preclinical, dominated by animal-model and in vitro work on growth-hormone-releasing hormone analogues and on carrier-binding strategies for extending a peptide's presence in circulation. The DAC concept is itself the subject of much of that literature, which is a further reason the distinction on this page matters when reading a paper alongside a product listing: a study of one material is not a study of the other.
Neither material has completed the regulatory process that would establish safety or efficacy for any medical indication, and findings in animal models and cell culture do not transfer automatically to other species. Arctic Lab Supply does not publish research conclusions, recommend applications, or provide guidance on experimental design.