Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 15, 2025

Author Spotlight: Developing Tools to Tune the Activity of Tyrosine Phosphatases
Published on: September 6, 2024
Exaptive Evolution of Target of Rapamycin Signaling in Multicellular Eukaryotes
1Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; Plant Gene Expression Center, U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service, Albany, CA 94710, USA; Laboratory of Genetics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
Abstract:
Target of rapamycin (TOR) is a protein kinase that coordinates metabolism with nutrient and energy availability in eukaryotes. TOR and its primary interactors, RAPTOR and LST8, have been remarkably evolutionarily static since they arose in the unicellular last common ancestor of plants, fungi, and animals, but the upstream regulatory mechanisms and downstream effectors of TOR signaling have evolved considerable diversity in these separate lineages. Here, I focus on the roles of exaptation and adaptation in the evolution of novel signaling axes in the TOR network in multicellular eukaryotes, concentrating especially on amino acid sensing, cell-cell signaling, and cell differentiation.
Related Concept Videos
mTOR Signaling and Cancer Progression
The mTOR pathway or the...
PI3K/mTOR/AKT Signaling Pathway
Interactions Between Signaling Pathways
Convergence and divergence, and cross-talk between signaling pathways
Two distinct signaling pathways can converge on a single functional unit, which may either be a single protein or a complex of proteins. The response is either functionally distinct or synergistic between the two pathways but different from the response...
Transduction
MAPK Signaling Cascades
The Ras Gene
Ras is a...

