Vol.28 No.3（2006 June）：395-398

Progress in mTOR study
Zhi Pan^{1, 2}, Ling-Qiang Zhang^1*, Ji-Zhi Jiang², Fu-Chu He^1*
(¹Beijing Institute of Radiation Medicine, Beijing 100850, China;² College of Life Science, Hebei University, Baoding 071002, China)

Abstract The mammalian target of rapamycin, mTOR, is a serine/threonine protein kinase that plays a crucial role in the nutrient-sensitive signalling pathway and the regulation of cell growth and proliferation. mTOR phosphorylates p70^S6K and eIF4E binding protein-1 to promote mRNA translation. The activity of mTOR is regulated by the concentration of amino acids, especially leucine, as well as the growth factors and the overall energy supply by which the AMP-activated protein kinase is required. Two signalling pathways, i.e. PI3K/Akt and Akt/TSC1-TSC2 pathways, have been demonstrated to be critical in the regulation of mTOR activity. Abnormalities in the mTOR signalling pathway contributes to tumorigenesis; thus, therapeutic drugs might be designed which targets mTOR kinase.

Key words rapamycin; mTOR; signalling pathway; tumor

Received: November 11, 2005 Accepted: December 28, 2005

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.30321003) and the National High-Tech Research and Development Program of China (863 Program) ( No.2004AA221100, No. 2002BA71A02-5)

^*Corresponding authors. Fu-Chu He: Tel/Fax: 86-10-68177417, E-mail: hefc@nic.bmi.ac.cn

Ling-Qiang Zhang: Tel/Fax: 86-10-68177417, E-mail: zhanglq@nic.bmi.ac.cn