Research Perspective|Volume 5, Issue 7|pp 490—494

M(o)TOR of aging: MTOR as a universal molecular hypothalamus

Mikhail V. Blagosklonny¹

¹Department of Cell Stress Biology, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, BLSC, L3-312, Elm and Carlton Streets, Buffalo, NY, 14263, USA

Received: June 30, 2013Accepted: July 16, 2013Published: July 16, 2013

Copyright: © 2013 Blagosklonny et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

A recent ground-breaking publication described hypothalamus-driven programmatic aging. As a Russian proverb goes “everything new is well-forgotten old”. In 1958, Dilman proposed that aging and its related diseases are programmed by the hypothalamus. This theory, supported by beautiful experiments, remained unnoticed just to be re-discovered recently. Yet, it does not explain all manifestations of aging. And would organism age without hypothalamus? Do sensing pathways such as MTOR (mechanistic Target of Rapamycin) and IKK-beta play a role of a “molecular hypothalamus” in every cell? Are hypothalamus-driven alterations simply a part of quasi-programmed aging manifested by hyperfunction and secondary signal-resistance? Here are some answers.