Rapamycin facts for kids

Rapamycin, also known as sirolimus, is a special substance that comes from a tiny living thing called a bacterium. This bacterium is named Streptomyces hygroscopicus.

Doctors use rapamycin in medicine to help people who have received a new organ, like a kidney transplant. It helps to prevent the body from "rejecting" the new organ. It works by making the body's immune system less active. This is especially helpful for kidney transplants. Rapamycin stops certain immune cells, called T cells and B cells, from becoming too active. It does this by reducing something called interleukin-2 (IL-2). Sirolimus is also used as a special coating on tubes called coronary stents, which help keep blood vessels open.

How Rapamycin Might Help You Live Longer

Scientists first found that rapamycin could help living things live longer in 2006. This was seen in tiny cells called yeast.

In a study from 2009, scientists gave rapamycin to mice. The mice started getting the medicine when they were 20 months old, which is like 60 human years. The mice that received rapamycin lived 28% to 38% longer than mice that didn't. This meant their maximum lifespan increased by 9% to 14%.

Since then, other studies have also shown that rapamycin can help mice live longer. Now, scientists are testing it on other animals, like marmoset monkeys. There are also plans to study its effects on dogs.

It's important to know that high doses of rapamycin can make the immune system weaker. This means people taking a lot of rapamycin for transplants or cancer might get sick more easily from infections.

Scientists think that some special ways of eating, like eating fewer calories or less of a substance called methionine, might also help people live longer. They believe these diets work by slowing down a process in the body called mTOR activity. This might happen by limiting an important building block called leucine, which usually speeds up mTOR.

Inside our cells, there are tiny powerhouses called mitochondria. When these powerhouses get damaged, it can affect how our cells work and how we age. Rapamycin helps the body clean up damaged cell parts through a process called autophagy. This cleaning process helps keep cells healthy and might be one way rapamycin helps with aging.

Images for kids

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  Figure 4: Proposed mechanism of lysine cyclodeaminase conversion of L-lysine to L-pipecolic acid

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  A plaque, written in Portuguese, commemorating the discovery of sirolimus on Easter Island, near Rano Kau

See also

In Spanish: Sirólimus para niños