Autoregulation of the mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) complex 2 integrity is controlled by an ATP-dependent mechanism.

Nutrients are essential for living organisms because they fuel biological processes in cells. Cells monitor nutrient abundance and coordinate a ratio of anabolic and catabolic reactions. Mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling is the essential nutrient-sensing pathway that controls anabolic processes in cells. The central component of this pathway is mTOR, a highly conserved and essential protein kinase that exists in two distinct functional complexes. The nutrient-sensitive mTOR complex 1 (mTORC1) controls cell growth and cell size by phosphorylation of the regulators of protein synthesis S6K1 and 4EBP1, whereas its second complex, mTORC2, regulates cell proliferation by functioning as the regulatory kinase of Akt and other members of the AGC kinase family. The regulation of mTORC2 remains poorly characterized. Our study shows that the cellular ATP balance controls a basal kinase activity of mTORC2 that maintains the integrity of mTORC2 and phosphorylation of Akt on the turn motif Thr-450 site. We found that mTOR stabilizes SIN1 by phosphorylation of its hydrophobic and conserved Ser-260 site to maintain the integrity of mTORC2. The optimal kinase activity of mTORC2 requires a concentration of ATP above 1.2 mM and makes this kinase complex highly sensitive to ATP depletion. We found that not amino acid but glucose deprivation of cells or acute ATP depletion prevented the mTOR-dependent phosphorylation of SIN1 on Ser-260 and Akt on Thr-450. In a low glucose medium, the cells carrying a substitution of SIN1 with its phosphomimetic mutant show an increased rate of cell proliferation related to a higher abundance of mTORC2 and phosphorylation of Akt. Thus, the homeostatic ATP sensor mTOR controls the integrity of mTORC2 and phosphorylation of Akt on the turn motif site.

Isolation of the mTOR complexes by affinity purification.

The mammalian Target Of Rapamycin (mTOR) protein is a central component of the essential and highly conserved signaling pathway that emerged as a critical effector in regulation of cell physiology. Biochemical studies defined mTOR as the protein kinase that exists at least in two distinct complexes. The first complex has been characterized as the nutrient-sensitive mTOR complex 1 that controls cell growth and cell size by regulating protein synthesis and autophagy. The second complex of mTOR has been defined as the component of growth factor signaling that functions as a major regulatory kinase of Akt/PKB. Here, we provide the detailed methods how to purify the functional complexes of mTOR by affinity purification. In the first part, we describe the purification of the distinct mTOR complexes by immunoprecipitation. Purification of the soluble mTOR complexes is explained in the second part of this chapter.