Julien Louis-André, Roux Philippe P
Institut de recherche en immunologie et en cancérologie (IRIC), Département de pathologie et biologie cellulaire, Faculté de médecine, Université de Montréal, CP 6128, Succursale Centre-ville, Montréal, Québec, H3C 3J7 Canada.
Med Sci (Paris). 2010 Dec;26(12):1056-60. doi: 10.1051/medsci/201026121056.
The discovery of rapamycin from a soil sample on Easter Island in the mid 60's marked the beginning of an exciting field of research in cell biology and medicine. While it was first used as an antifungal and as an immunosuppressive drug, more recent studies confirmed rapamycin's antiproliferative properties over a variety of solid tumors. Research aimed at identifying its mechanism of action uncovered mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin), a protein kinase that regulates mRNA translation and protein synthesis, an essential step in cell division and proliferation. Recent evidence suggests a more complex role for mTOR in the regulation of several growth factor-stimulated protein kinases, including the proto-oncogene Akt. This article reviews mTOR function and regulation, and briefly details the future challenges for anti-cancer therapies based on mTOR inhibition.
20世纪60年代中期，从复活节岛的一份土壤样本中发现了雷帕霉素，这标志着细胞生物学和医学领域一项激动人心的研究的开端。虽然它最初被用作抗真菌药物和免疫抑制药物，但最近的研究证实了雷帕霉素对多种实体瘤具有抗增殖特性。旨在确定其作用机制的研究发现了mTOR（雷帕霉素的哺乳动物靶点），一种调节mRNA翻译和蛋白质合成的蛋白激酶，这是细胞分裂和增殖中的一个关键步骤。最近的证据表明，mTOR在调节几种生长因子刺激的蛋白激酶（包括原癌基因Akt）方面发挥着更复杂的作用。本文综述了mTOR的功能和调节，并简要详述了基于mTOR抑制的抗癌疗法未来面临的挑战。
