MTOR and infection: Consistent with reports on early activation of PI3K/Akt and/or mTOR signaling during L. donovani infection in human monocyte-derived macrophages as well as human monocytic-like THP-1 and mouse macrophage RAW 264.7 cell lines [26, 51, 52], we observed increased phosphorylation of mTOR downstream targets in BMDMs as early as 2 h and up to 8 h post-infection.