The large serine/threonine protein kinase mTOR regulates cellular and organismal homeostasis by coordinating anabolic and catabolic processes with nutrient, energy, and oxygen availability and growth factor signaling. Cells and organisms experience a wide variety of insults that perturb the homeostatic systems governed by mTOR, and therefore require appropriate stress responses to allow cells to continue to function. Stress can manifest from an excess or lack of upstream signals, or due to genetic perturbations in upstream effectors of the pathway. mTOR nucleates two large protein complexes that are important nodes in the pathways that help buffer cells from stresses, and are implicated in the progression of stress-associated phenotypes and diseases, such as aging, tumorigenesis, and diabetes. mTOR belongs to the family of phosphoinositide-3-kinase (PI3K)-related kinases (PIKK), along with ATM, ATR, DNA-PK and hSMG1. All these proteins have C-terminal protein kinase domains with similarity to the lipid kinase PI3K, thus giving the family its name. While all members of the family respond to genotoxic stresses, mTOR also responds to numerous other stresses, including those related to nutrient, energy, and oxygen levels. Here you can see a recent cryoEM structure of the mTORC1-TFEB-Rag-Ragulator complex involved in lysosome function and autophagy (PDB code: 7UXH)
#molecularart ... #immolecular ... #complex ... #mTOR ... #autophagy ... #lysosome ... #homeostasis ... #cryoem
Structure rendered with @proteinimaging and depicted with @corelphotopaint
#molecularart ... #immolecular ... #complex ... #mTOR ... #autophagy ... #lysosome ... #homeostasis ... #cryoem
Structure rendered with @proteinimaging and depicted with @corelphotopaint
