GrowTallest

mTORC1 and chondrocyte volume

How much of a bone's length comes from chondrocytes swelling, what controls that swelling, why making the cells bigger is not the same as making the bone longer, and what the second mTOR complex does instead.

Inside the cellUpdated

6 min read16 sources

mTORC1 reads amino acids, energy, oxygen and growth factors, then lets the cell build. The cell swells in three phases: dry mass about triples, water swells it about fourfold, then both double it again. amino acidsenergyoxygengrowth factorsmTORC1mass ×3water ×4both ×2InputsmTORC1Cell swellsbuilds, stops recyclingabout twentyfold

A growth plate lengthens a bone in three ways: cells divide, cells enlarge, and the cartilage they leave behind is replaced by bone. As a chondrocyte leaves the proliferative zone and becomes hypertrophic it increases in volume around twentyfold, and that enlargement is the single largest contributor to how long the bone ends up.

In this article

  • mTORC1
  • mTORC2
  • Compounds

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