title: Unraveling the role of the Target of Rapamycin signaling in sphingolipid metabolism.
abstract: Sphingolipids are important bioactive molecules that regulate basic aspects of cellular metabolism and physiology, including cell growth, adhesion, migration, senescence, apoptosis, endocytosis, and autophagy in yeast and higher eukaryotes. Since they have the ability to modulate the activation of several proteins and signaling pathways, variations in the relative levels of different sphingolipid species result in important changes in overall cellular functions and fate. Sphingolipid metabolism and their route of synthesis are highly conserved from yeast to mammalian cells. Studies using the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae have served in many ways to foster our understanding of sphingolipid dynamics and their role in the regulation of cellular processes. In the past decade, studies in S. cerevisiae have unraveled a functional association between the Target of Rapamycin (TOR) pathway and sphingolipids, showing that both TOR Complex 1 (TORC1) and TOR Complex 2 (TORC2) branches control temporal and spatial aspects of sphingolipid metabolism in response to physiological and environmental cues. In this review, we report recent findings in this emerging and exciting link between the TOR pathway and sphingolipids and implications in human health and disease.
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Universidade do Porto, Rua Alfredo Allen, 208, 4200-135 Porto, Portugal; IBMC, Instituto de Biologia Molecular e Celular, Porto, Portugal; ICBAS, Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar, Departamento de Biologia Molecular, Universidade do Porto, Rua de Jorge Viterbo Ferreira, 228, 4050-313 Porto, Portugal.
authors.forename: Vitor
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Teixeira
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Universidade do Porto, Rua Alfredo Allen, 208, 4200-135 Porto, Portugal; IBMC, Instituto de Biologia Molecular e Celular, Porto, Portugal; ICBAS, Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar, Departamento de Biologia Molecular, Universidade do Porto, Rua de Jorge Viterbo Ferreira, 228, 4050-313 Porto, Portugal. Electronic address: vcosta@ibmc.up.pt.
authors.forename: Vítor
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Costa
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001343:Autophagy; D053898:Biosynthetic Pathways; D002518:Ceramides / Q000096:biosynthesis; D006801:Humans; D008928:Mitochondria / Q000502:physiology; D010766:Phosphorylation; D011499:Protein Processing, Post-Translational; D015398:Signal Transduction; D013107:Sphingolipids / Q000378:metabolism*; D058570:TOR Serine-Threonine Kinases / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D002518:Ceramides; D013107:Sphingolipids; D058570:TOR Serine-Threonine Kinases