The rapamycin sTORy: 50-year journey from Easter Island to the frontiers of biology and medicine.
Level 5 - mechanism / opinion, no new human data
Narrative and historical review of molecular mechanisms and drug discovery without primary human data or systematic synthesis.
PubMed 41888005 · doi:10.1016/j.tibs.2026.02.004
What was done
The authors conducted a narrative and historical review tracing the 50-year history of rapamycin following its initial isolation from a bacterium in Easter Island soil, summarizing the discovery of the target of rapamycin (TOR) signaling cascade, mechanisms of nutrient sensing, pathway regulation, and clinical applications.
What was found
The abstract does not report quantitative outcomes or empirical measurements. It provides a historical and molecular overview of rapamycin's evolution from an antifungal natural product to a central pathway in biomedical research and therapy.
Why it matters
It provides a comprehensive 50-year retrospective on how the characterization of a single natural compound established the field of TOR biology, which regulates fundamental cellular nutrient-sensing and metabolic pathways.
Limits
As a narrative review, it introduces no new empirical or clinical data and does not employ systematic review or meta-analytic search methods. Detail is constrained to what is summarized from previous literature.
Cited by
- supports Rapamycin was initially investigated as an antifungal before being identified as an immunosuppressant.