Unraveling the role of the Target of Rapamycin signaling in sphingolipid metabolism

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.