Pathway link RAPA-LONGEVITY
Rapamycin Longevity
Rapamycin activates Longevity.
Rapamycin makes mice live longer, even when given late in life – the single biggest result behind the whole "this pathway and ageing" idea.
The conditions it holds under
Mouse only. No human lifespan or healthspan endpoint exists; EVERLAST has no results yet. BIT2016 shows a non-continuous schedule can still extend post-treatment life expectancy, but the result is dose- and route-specific: in the 8 mg/kg/day intraperitoneal arm males gained +60% post-treatment life expectancy (p=0.02) while females showed no survival benefit (p=0.261) and a shift toward aggressive haematopoietic cancers (16/16 vs 6/12, p=0.002); in the same paper's 126 ppm dietary encapsulated-rapamycin arm survival rose significantly in BOTH sexes, with a Cox model finding no evidence that sex modified the treatment effect (p=0.904). Cite the arm, not just the paper. ARR2016: an intermittent regimen (2 mg/kg every 5 days) started as late as 20 months of age extended lifespan in female C57BL/6J mice; the abstract reports the effect in females only.
- Time it takes
- long exposure (days to weeks)
- Step
- indirect (through steps not drawn here)
- Measured in
- mouse
- Reaches people?
- not tested in people
- How settled
- settled in the literature
Studies behind it
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2009 | A | Rapamycin fed late in life extends lifespan in genetically heterogeneous miceHAR2009 Rapamycin fed from 600 days of age extended median and maximal lifespan in both sexes; age at 90% mortality rose 14% in females and 9% in males. |
| 2016 | A | Transient rapamycin treatment can increase lifespan and healthspan in middle-aged miceBIT2016 In male mice, a 3-month rapamycin course started in middle age increased life expectancy by up to 60% (high injected dose). In females that dose did not extend lifespan and shifted cancers toward aggressive haematopoietic types; a lower dietary dose raised survival in both sexes. |
| 2014 | A | BMAL1-dependent regulation of the mTOR signaling pathway delays agingKHA2014 Loss of the clock protein BMAL1 raised mTORC1 activity in mice and in cultured cells, and rapamycin extended the lifespan of Bmal1-/- mice by 50%. Places the circadian clock upstream of mTORC1 as a brake, and links that brake to ageing. |
| 2009 | A | mTOR regulation and therapeutic rejuvenation of aging hematopoietic stem cellsCHE2009 mTOR hyperactivation drives HSC aging; rapamycin restores hematopoietic stem-cell function. |
| 2016 | A | Intermittent Administration of Rapamycin Extends the Life Span of Female C57BL/6J MiceARR2016 Intermittent rapamycin (2 mg/kg every 5 days), started as late as 20 months of age, extended the lifespan of female C57BL/6J mice. This is the same regimen that in ARR2015 spared glucose homeostasis and the immune system compared with daily dosing, so read together the two studies suggest the lifespan benefit can be separated from many of rapamycin's side effects. SCOPE: the abstract reports lifespan extension in females; it does not report side-effect measurements in this aged cohort, so the separability claim rests on combining this study with ARR2015 (a different, young male cohort). Full-text numbers not yet extracted. |
Points the other way
No study in the Atlas contradicts this link. That means none in this curated set, not none in the literature.
Who has checked this
- Checked by
- No researcher outside the project has checked this link yet.
- Curator sign-off
- Not signed off yet. This link was drafted with AI help and has not been reviewed link by link; treat it as a proposal until it is.
- Curated by
- Oliver Barton, with AI help for drafting; see how links are checked.
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