Regulatory network of target of rapamycin (TOR) kinase in plants

Target of rapamycin (TOR) kinase is a conserved serine/threonine kinase and an essential signaling hub in eukaryotes. The development of next-generation TOR inhibitors, novel genetic materials, and phosphoproteomic technologies has greatly advanced research on plant TOR signaling, confirming its critical roles in multiple processes throughout the plant life cycle, revealing its regulatory functions in plant-specific pathways, and preliminarily establishing a multi-layered TOR regulatory network. This review summarizes the molecular mechanisms underlying the biological functions and regulatory networks of TOR in plants, and discusses existing challenges and future research directions.