Rapamycin Exerts Its Geroprotective Effects in the Ageing Human Immune System by Enhancing Resilience Against DNA Damage

This study investigated how rapamycin affects the aging human immune system using a placebokontrollerad experimental medicine design in older adults supplemented with low-dose rapamycin, plus ex vivo experiments on human T cells exposed to acute genotoxic stress. The researchers found that rapamycin and other mTOR inhibitors suppressed senescence in human T cells, but this did not occur by slowing protein synthesis or halting cell division. Instead, rapamycin enhanced resilience against DNA damage in aged immune cells. The study positions mTOR inhibitors as senomorphic agents that mitigate cellular senescence rather than killing senescent cells (senolytic). This is one of the few studies examining rapamycin's effects directly on the human immune system rather than in mice or cell lines. Sample size was not stated in the abstract.

Rapamycin exerts geroprotective effects in the ageing human immune system by enhancing resilience against DNA damage.