The recent report that rapamycin increases the lifespan of mice is a major breakthrough in aging because it can be translated easily to humans. However, the critical question is whether long-term rapamycin treatment improves healthspan/quality-of-life as well as lifespan. This question must be addressed because of rapamycin's potential negative effects on the immune system. The """"""""GO"""""""" grant application presented here is a unique, large, multi-investigator study designed to answer the following questions: (1) Does rapamycin retard/reduce age-related diseases [e.g., cancer, neurodegeneration, atherosclerosis, and nephropathy]? (2) Do mice given rapamycin maintain a better/longer healthspan (e.g., sensitivity of mice to infectious agents, autoimmunity, and biological function)? (3) Does rapamycin improve pathways that impact healthspan (e.g., autophagy and inflammation)? The data generated by this grant will be extremely important to the NIH's mission of improving health because it will provide the first information on how rapamycin-treatment, which increases lifespan, affects the healthspan of mice. The unique """"""""GO"""""""" grant mechanism allows us to bring together 21 investigators (with expertise in a variety of areas of aging research) in 9 Projects and 3 Cores to conduct a 2-year comprehensive assessment of rapamycin's effect on the health status of mice. Such a multi-investigator effort is necessary because healthspan is poorly defined and encompasses multiple functions, which potentially interact. It took 2 decades of research funded through """"""""normal"""""""" NIH-mechanisms to establish that caloric restriction increased the healthspan of rodents, i.e., the current data show that caloric restriction retards/reduces age-related diseases and improves physiological functions that decline with age. Within 2 years, the data generated by this grant will provide a similar, if not better, assessment of the effect of rapamycin on healthspan. The environment at San Antonio is ideal for conducting such a comprehensive study because of the outstanding animal resources and pathological expertise in the San Antonio Nathan Shock Aging Center, the large number of investigators with expertise in aging (especially using mice to study aging), and our investigators'first-hand experience in feeding rapamycin to mice and measuring rapamycin levels in the diet and blood of mice. We believe that our study meets the goals of the """"""""GO"""""""" grants because of the unique nature of the question studied and because the data generated have the potential to immediately stimulate translational research into the effectiveness of rapamycin in treating various age-related diseases in humans. In addition, this application fulfills the goal of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, to provide immediate stimulus to the economy by increasing employment opportunities. For example, funds requested in this application will provide salary support for 23 new positions for technicians/post-doctoral fellows for 2 years and more than 50% of the per diem costs will go for the salaries of new personnel caring for the mice.

Public Health Relevance

The outcomes from this grant will be extremely important to the NIH's mission of improving health because it will provide the first information on the long-term effect of rapamycin on healthspan and the efficacy of using rapamycin to treat a broad range of age-related diseases relevant to humans.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Aging (NIA)
Type
High Impact Research and Research Infrastructure Programs (RC2)
Project #
5RC2AG036613-02
Application #
7942984
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZAG1-ZIJ-2 (O8))
Program Officer
Murthy, Mahadev
Project Start
2009-09-30
Project End
2012-08-31
Budget Start
2010-09-01
Budget End
2012-08-31
Support Year
2
Fiscal Year
2010
Total Cost
$2,650,628
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio
Department
Biology
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
800772162
City
San Antonio
State
TX
Country
United States
Zip Code
78229
Calhoun, Cheresa; Shivshankar, Pooja; Saker, Mirna et al. (2016) Senescent Cells Contribute to the Physiological Remodeling of Aged Lungs. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci 71:153-60
Christy, Barbara; Demaria, Marco; Campisi, Judith et al. (2015) p53 and rapamycin are additive. Oncotarget 6:15802-13
Richardson, Arlan; Galvan, Veronica; Lin, Ai-Ling et al. (2015) How longevity research can lead to therapies for Alzheimer's disease: The rapamycin story. Exp Gerontol 68:51-8
Hurez, Vincent; Dao, Vinh; Liu, Aijie et al. (2015) Chronic mTOR inhibition in mice with rapamycin alters T, B, myeloid, and innate lymphoid cells and gut flora and prolongs life of immune-deficient mice. Aging Cell 14:945-56
Yu, Zhen; Wang, Rong; Fok, Wilson C et al. (2015) Rapamycin and dietary restriction induce metabolically distinctive changes in mouse liver. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci 70:410-20
Fischer, Kathleen E; Gelfond, Jonathan A L; Soto, Vanessa Y et al. (2015) Health Effects of Long-Term Rapamycin Treatment: The Impact on Mouse Health of Enteric Rapamycin Treatment from Four Months of Age throughout Life. PLoS One 10:e0126644
Lee, Hak Joo; Feliers, Denis; Mariappan, Meenalakshmi M et al. (2015) Tadalafil Integrates Nitric Oxide-Hydrogen Sulfide Signaling to Inhibit High Glucose-induced Matrix Protein Synthesis in Podocytes. J Biol Chem 290:12014-26
Liu, Yuhong; Diaz, Vivian; Fernandez, Elizabeth et al. (2014) Rapamycin-induced metabolic defects are reversible in both lean and obese mice. Aging (Albany NY) 6:742-54
Fok, Wilson C; Bokov, Alex; Gelfond, Jonathan et al. (2014) Combined treatment of rapamycin and dietary restriction has a larger effect on the transcriptome and metabolome of liver. Aging Cell 13:311-9
Fok, Wilson C; Livi, Carolina; Bokov, Alex et al. (2014) Short-term rapamycin treatment in mice has few effects on the transcriptome of white adipose tissue compared to dietary restriction. Mech Ageing Dev 140:23-9

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