The TOR Pathway Plays Pleiotropic Roles in Growth and Stress Responses of the Fungal Pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans

Abstract

The target of rapamycin (TOR) pathway is an evolutionarily conserved signal transduction system that governs a plethora of eukaryotic biological processes, but its role in Cryptococcus neoformans remains elusive. In this study, we investigated the TOR pathway by functionally characterizing two Tor-like kinases, Tor1 and Tlk1, in C. neoformans. We successfully deleted TLK1, but not TOR1. TLK1 deletion did not result in any evident in vitro phenotypes, suggesting that Tlk1 is dispensable for the growth of C. neoformans. We demonstrated that Tor1, but not Tlk1, is essential and the target of rapamycin by constructing and analyzing conditionally regulated strains and sporulation analysis of hete..