| Cell growth is a fundamental biological process whereby cells accumulate mass and increase in size. The mammalian TOR (mTOR) pathway regulates growth by coordinating energy and nutrient signals with growth factor-derived signals (1). mTOR is a large protein kinase with two different complexes. One complex contains mTOR, GβL and raptor, which is a target of rapamycin. The other complex, insensitive to rapamycin, includes mTOR, GβL, Sin1, and rictor (1). The mTOR-rictor complex phosphorylates Ser473 of Akt/PKB in vitro (2). This phosphorylation is essential for full Akt/PKB activation. Furthermore, an siRNA knockdown of rictor inhibits Ser473 phosphorylation in 3T3-L1 adipocytes (3). This complex has also been shown to phosphorylate the rapamycin-resistant mutants of S6K1, another effector of mTOR (4). |
