Díaz-Troya Sandra, Pérez-Pérez María Esther, Florencio Francisco J, Crespo José L
Instituto de Bioquímica Vegetal y Fotosíntesis, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Seville, Spain.
Autophagy. 2008 Oct;4(7):851-65. doi: 10.4161/auto.6555. Epub 2008 Oct 8.
The target of rapamycin (TOR) is a conserved Ser/Thr kinase that controls cell growth by activating an array of anabolic processes including protein synthesis, transcription and ribosome biogenesis, and by inhibiting catabolic processes such as mRNA degradation and autophagy. Control of autophagy by TOR occurs primarily at the induction step, and involves activation of the ATG1 kinase, a conserved component of the autophagic machinery. A substantial number of genes participating in autophagy have been originally identified in yeast. Most of these genes have mammalian homologues and many have apparent homologues in plants, indicating that autophagy is conserved among eukaryotes. The recent identification of TOR as a key element in cell growth control in plants and algae opens the way for future studies to investigate whether this signaling pathway may also control autophagy in photosynthetic organisms.
雷帕霉素靶蛋白（TOR）是一种保守的丝氨酸/苏氨酸激酶，它通过激活一系列合成代谢过程（包括蛋白质合成、转录和核糖体生物发生）以及抑制分解代谢过程（如mRNA降解和自噬）来控制细胞生长。TOR对自噬的调控主要发生在诱导阶段，涉及自噬机制的保守组分ATG1激酶的激活。大量参与自噬的基因最初是在酵母中鉴定出来的。这些基因中的大多数在哺乳动物中有同源物，许多在植物中也有明显的同源物，这表明自噬在真核生物中是保守存在的。最近在植物和藻类中发现TOR是细胞生长控制的关键元件，这为未来研究该信号通路是否也能调控光合生物中的自噬开辟了道路。
