Volume 31, No 4, Apr 2021

ISSN: 1001-0602 
EISSN: 1748-7838 2018 
impact factor 17.848* 
(Clarivate Analytics, 2019)

Volume 31 Issue 4, April 2021: 478-481   |  Open Access

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Aldolase is a sensor for both low and high glucose, linking to AMPK and mTORC1

Mengqi Li¹ , Chen-Song Zhang¹ , Jin-Wei Feng¹ , Xiaoyan Wei¹ , Cixiong Zhang¹ , Changchuan Xie¹ , Yaying Wu¹ , Simon A. Hawley² , Abdelmadjid Atrih³ , Douglas J. Lamont³ , Zhichao Wang⁴ , Hai-Long Piao⁵ , D. Grahame Hardie² , Sheng-Cai Lin^1,*

¹State Key Laboratory for Cellular Stress Biology, School of Life Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian 361102, China
²Division of Cell Signalling and Immunology, College of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, DD1 5EH Dundee, Scotland, UK
³Fingerprints Proteomics Facility, School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, DD1 5EH Dundee, Scotland, UK
⁴Department of Molecular & Cellular Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism Research Institute, City of Hope Medical Center, Duarte, CA 91010, USA
⁵CAS Key Laboratory of Separation Science for Analytical Chemistry, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian, Liaoning 116023, China
Correspondence: Sheng-Cai Lin(linsc@xmu.edu.cn)

Dear Editor,

As well as glucose being the major carbon nutrient for most cells, its availability also acts as a gate-keeper exerting a switch between anabolic and catabolic metabolism, with the protein kinases mTORC1 and AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) being the two master controllers.1 In low glucose, AMPK is activated and phosphorylates a wide range of downstream targets to maintain energy homeostasis, by switching on catabolic pathways while switching off ATP-consuming processes.1 In high glucose, mTORC1 is activated and shifts the metabolic program of the cell towards anabolic metabolism.1 It is already known that low glucose, and hence low levels of the glycolytic intermediate fructose-1,6-bisphosphate (FBP), can be sensed by aldolase to trigger AMPK activation via the lysosomal pathway.2,3 This occurs independently of increases in AMP and ADP, the classical activators of AMPK.2 Although it is clear that mTORC1 is also regulated by glucose availability at multiple levels, the underlying mechanisms have not been fully elucidated.

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41422-020-00456-8

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