Rapamycin – an Easter Island neuroscientist’s treasure

Abstract

In 1964, the Royal Canadian Navy’s H.M.C.S. Cape Scott set sail from Canada for Easter Island. On board were about 40 scientists and doctors whose purpose was to study in detail the environment and diseases of the people living on Easter Island. None of them expected that this expedition would result in the discovery of a new substance - rapamycin, which 50 years later would become an important tool in the study of the molecular biology of the nervous system and an important drug used to treat neurological diseases. Rapamycin is a natural substance produced by the soil bacterium, Streptomyces hygroscopicus. However, biochemically it is an inhibitor of an important regulator of cell metabolism, the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR). This article briefly discusses the history of rapamycin, full of twists and turns and determined researchers. It then describes in a little more detail what mTOR is and what we have learned through the use of rapamycin about its role in the development, physiology, and aging of the nervous system. Finally, this article discusses diseases of the nervous system associated with changes in mTOR activity and the potential clinical use of rapamycin.