www.age.mpg.de

Eating less, intermittent fasting, anti-ageing drugs such as rapamycin - there is a lot of public advice on preventing age-related diseases. A central regulator that appears to be linked to all these measures is a protein complex called mTORC1 that functions in our cells both as a sensor of nutrient availability and as a controller of most cellular functions. A research group at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne has now shown for the first time that mTORC1 functions differently at different locations inside cells. These new findings broaden our understanding of how mTORC1 is activated by nutrients and may help to develop new, more-targeted therapies against ageing and age-associated diseases.