Living organisms have evolved various mechanisms to control their metabolism and response to various stresses, allowing them to survive and grow in different environments. In eukaryotes, the highly conserved mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling pathway integrates both intracellular and extracellular signals and serves as a central regulator of cellular metabolism, proliferation and survival. A growing body of evidence indicates that mTOR signaling is closely related to another cellular protection mechanism, the DNA damage response (DDR). Many factors important for the DDR are also involved in the mTOR pathway. In this review, we discuss how these two pathways communicate to ensure an efficient protection of the cell against metabolic and genotoxic stresses. We also describe how anticancer therapies benefit from simultaneous targeting of the DDR and mTOR pathways.
Keywords: Anticancer drugs; Autophagy; DNA damage response; GATOR1; Mitochondria; PI3K-AKT; SESTRINS; mTORC1 pathway; p53.
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