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According to Xu et al. (2012), multiple tissues and organs in our body have this signaling system with AMPK and the balance in energy is accomplished by these sensors. The regulation done by this pathway is very important and any deficiency can lead to disorders like type 2 diabetes, obesity and other syndromes.
Whenever nutrient insufficiency occurs the activation of AMPK takes place; which signals feeding. These are controlled in the hypothalamus region with the use of glucose, leptin and insulin (Akabas et al., 2012).
AMPK and mTOR play a very important role in the etiology of these disorders. AMPK works with the help of the Central Nervous system and the tissues to moderate the amount of energy and food consumed by tissues and organs.
According to Bolster et al. (2002), the experiment carried out by them helped in understanding the control of protein production in muscles by the activation of AMPK. The experiment was carried out in male rats.
Similarly, in the study by Kimura et al. (2003), human corneal epithelial cells were treated with AICAR (an AMPK activator). It was found that rapamycin resistant variant (p70S6k) was found to be insensitive to AICAR which suggests that the activity is controlled by mTOR and AMPK.
This study and the results clearly show the linkage between the AMPK and mTOR pathways. In fact, it is believed that the motor signal acts as an instigating switch which controls p70S6k while AMPK is seen to act like a master switch to control the regulation of p70S6k which in turn, controls energy metabolism. Today AMPK is also seen as a key target for anticancer drugs since it is known to inhibit breast cancer cells and growth (Vidal, 2011).
References
Akabas, S., Lederman, S, A., Moore, B. (2012). Textbook of Obesity: Biological, Psychological
and Cultural Influences. John Wiley and Sons, West Sussex, U.K. ISBN: 978-0-470-65588-7.
Bolster, D. R., Crozier, S. J., Kimball S. R., and Jefferson, L. S. (2002). AMP-activated Protein
Kinase Suppresses Protein Synthesis in Rat Skeletal Muscle through Down-regulated
Mammalian Target of Rapamycin (mTOR) Signaling. The Journal of Biological
Chemistry. 277, 23977-23980.
Kimura, N., Tokunaga, C., Dalal, S., Richardson, C., Yoshino, K., Hara, K., Kemp, B.,
Witters, L., Mimura, O. and Yonezawa, K. (2003). Genes to Cells. (8) 1, pp 65-79.
Doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2443.2003.00615.x
Vidal, C. (2011). Post-Translational Modifications in Health and Disease. Springer, New York.
Doi: 10.1007/978-1-4419-6382-6.
Xu, J., Ji, J., and Yan, XH. (2012). Cross-talk between AMPK and mTOR in regulating energy
balance. Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, 52(5):373-81.
Doi:10.1080/10408398.2010.500245.
