Investigating the role of mTORC1 signalling in cellular migration

Rapamycin is a drug currently used to treat some cancers and to prevent organ rejection.

In yeast, flies, fish and mice, rapamycin improves both healthspan and lifespan, and therefore makes it a promising anti-ageing treatment.

However, long-term treatment with rapamycin is associated with numerous side- effects such as decreased wound healing, making it unsuitable for an anti- ageing treatment in humans. The “mechanistic target of rapamycin” (mTOR) pathway is a vital cellular pathway. It is involved in the regulation of cellular growth and protein synthesis.

Rapamycin is an inhibitor of the mTOR pathway and rapamycin or inhibition of mTOR has been shown to decrease cell movement.

We have recently described a distinct pool of mTORC1 activity at the edge of the cell, in an area important for movement.

We hypothesise that inhibition of mTORC1 by rapamycin prevents the formation of proteins required for cell movement leading to reduced wound healing.

My project aims to investigate the role of mTORC1 in cell movement, to see if we would ever be able to use rapamycin as a human anti-ageing treatment.