RING E3 ligases: key regulatory elements are involved in abiotic stress responses in plants

Abstract

Plants are constantly exposed to a variety of abiotic stresses, such as drought, heat, cold, flood, and salinity. To survive under such unfavorable conditions, plants have evolutionarily developed their own resistant-mechanisms. For several decades, many studies have clarified specific stress response pathways of plants through various molecular and genetic studies. In particular, it was recently discovered that ubiquitin proteasome system (UPS), a regulatory mechanism for protein turn over, is greatly involved in the stress responsive pathways. In the UPS, many E3 ligases play key roles in recognizing and tethering poly-ubiquitins on target proteins for subsequent degradation by the 26S proteasome. Here we discuss the roles of RING ligases that have been defined in related to abiotic stress responses in plants.

Overexpression of a Poplar RING-H2 Zinc Finger, Ptxerico, Confers Enhanced Drought Tolerance via Reduced Water Loss and Ion Leakage in Populus

“…In addition, some E3 ubiquitin ligases regulate abiotic stress response, including drought tolerance [ 9 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 ]. XERICO (Greek for ‘drought tolerant’) from Arabidopsis has been shown to confer drought tolerance when overexpressed in Arabidopsis [ 18 ] and rice [ 19 ] through the increase of endogenous ABA level.…”

OsDIRP1, a Putative RING E3 Ligase, Plays an Opposite Role in Drought and Cold Stress Responses as a Negative and Positive Factor, Respectively, in Rice (Oryza sativa L.)

“…Compared with Saccharomyces cerevisiae , which has 47 RING-type E3 encoding genes, rice and Arabidopsis contain 378 and 499 genes, respectively (Kraft et al, 2005; Stone et al, 2005; Mazzucotelli et al, 2006; Li et al, 2008; Du et al, 2009). Recent studies have revealed the cellular roles of RING E3 Ub ligases in response to abiotic stress in the dicot model plant Arabidopsis (Cho et al, 2017; Stone, 2018). In contrast, our knowledge concerning the roles of RING E3 ligases in the monocot cereal rice in response to abiotic stresses is relatively rudimentary.…”

OsCBE1, a Substrate Receptor of Cullin4-Based E3 Ubiquitin Ligase, Functions as a Regulator of Abiotic Stress Response and Productivity in Rice

“…Whether the negative regulation on ABA pathway by DDA1 is related to the structural stabilization of C4E3 by interacting with DCAFs needs further studies. Similarly, most U-box E3 ubiquitin ligases negatively regulate the ABA pathway [ 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 ]. Contrary to C4E3, many RING-type E3 ubiquitin ligases positively regulate the ABA pathway [ 56 , 60 ].…”