Observational studyJournal of translational medicine2025
Low-dose rapamycin alleviates clinical symptoms of fatigue and PEM in ME/CFS patients via improvement of autophagy: a pilot study.
Observational study in Journal of translational medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT06257420 (Low Dose Rapamycin in ME/CFS, Long-COVID, and Other Infection Associated Chronic Conditions), which is not on this map. Cited by 13 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Low Dose Rapamycin in ME/CFS, Long-COVID, and Other Infection Associated Chronic Conditions
Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- Association of rapamycin treatment with the modulation of purine metabolism, reduced microglial inflammatory responses, improved mitochondrial energy metabolism, and alleviation of fatigue symptoms in ME/CFS subjects: pilot findings from phase-II observational study.Journal of translational medicine · 2026Trial
- Low-Dose Ionizing Radiation and Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS): A Review of Recent Evidence and Future Research Directions Toward the Elucidation of a Metabolic, Immunologic, and Signaling Cascade.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- From lipid overload to autophagy collapse: how lipid dysregulation drives chronic inflammation and metabolic disease.Inflammation research : official journal of the European Histamine Research Society ... [et al.] · 2026Review
- Underuse of Pharmacologic Therapies for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Before Specialist Evaluation.Annals of family medicine · 2026Article
- Identification of novel reproducible combinatorial genetic risk factors for myalgic encephalomyelitis in the DecodeME patient cohort and commonalities with long COVID.Journal of translational medicine · 2026Article
- Prevalence of Circulating Autoantibodies Against G-Protein-Coupled Receptors as Potential Biomarkers for Long COVID: Preliminary Investigations.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Article
- An Overview of Severe Myalgic Encephalomyelitis.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Review
- Multi-omics identifies lipid accumulation in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome cell lines: a case-control study.Journal of translational medicine · 2026Article
- Non-randomized rapamycin augmentation of chronic self-administered ketamine provides subjective improvement in diverse phenotypes.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- The Post-COVID syndrome caused by excessive inflammation: pathogenesis, potential targets and therapeutic agents.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2026Review
- Temporal Dynamics of the Plasma Proteomic Landscape Reveals Maladaptation in ME/CFS Following Exertion.Molecular & cellular proteomics : MCP · 2025Article
- Proposed Mechanistic Axis of Infections and mTOR Hyperactivation: A Multidisciplinary Review of Immune, Rheumatologic, and Psychiatric Links.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Development and validation of blood-based diagnostic biomarkers for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) using EpiSwitchJournal of translational medicine · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
- Update of
Authors and funding
14 authors.
Funding
Abstract
snippets
backgroundmTOR activation is associated with chronic inflammation in ME/CFS. Previous studies have shown that sustained mTOR activation may cause chronic muscle fatigue by inhibiting ATG13-mediated autophagy. However, the therapeutic implication of this finding has not been established. Given that rapamycin is an mTOR inhibitor, this study aims to investigate whether low-dose rapamycin treatment improves autophagy markers and clinical symptoms of fatigue in ME/CFS subjects. This highlights the pivotal role of mTOR in the pathogenesis of ME/CFS.
methodsWe conducted a decentralized, uncontrolled trial of rapamycin in 86 patients with ME/CFS to evaluate its safety and efficacy. Low-dose rapamycin (6 mg/week) was administered, and core ME/CFS symptoms were assessed on days 30 (T1), 60 (T2), and 90 (T3). Plasma levels of autophagy metabolites, such as pSer258-ATG13 and BECLIN-1, were measured and correlated with clinical outcomes, specifically MFI.
resultsRapamycin (6 mg/week) was tolerated without any SAEs. Of the 70 patients who completed at the minimum to T1, 52 (74.3%) showed recovery in fatigue, PEM, and OI, along with improvements in MFI fatigue domains and SF-36 aspects. High levels of BECLIN-1 were detected in T3. Plasma pSer258-ATG13 levels were strongly downregulated at T1. Spearman's correlation analysis indicated an association between autophagy impairment and reduced activity.
conclusionsLow-dose rapamycin effectively reduced PEM and other key symptoms in patients with ME/CFS, as measured by BAS, SSS, MFI, and SF-36. Future studies should encompass dose optimization and develop a diagnostic tool to identify responders with mTOR-mediated autophagy disruption.
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