Ubiquitylation in Plant Developmental and Physiological Processes
A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Plant Sciences".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2022) | Viewed by 34333
Special Issue Editors
Interests: protein ubiquitylation; plant hormone signaling; chloroplast development; gene superfamily evolution
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Advances in genome sequencing have revealed large groups of plant genes whose protein products are involved in the process of protein ubiquitylation, where the 76-amino-acid ubiquitin protein is attached to (typically) a lysine residue within a target protein. This biochemical reaction is catalyzed by a highly polymorphic E1–E2–E3 enzymatic cascade consisting of a conserved E1 ubiquitin-activating enzyme, multiple E2 ubiquitin-conjugating enzymes and, in plants, a remarkable number of E3 ubiquitin ligases. The consequences of ubiquitylation are diverse, including altering the activity and/or localization of a protein or targeting it for degradation. Recently developed mass spectrometry-based proteome-wide analyses have uncovered an incredibly broad scope of ubiquitylation substrates, many of which are recognized and degraded by either the 26S proteasome or autophagy. As such, emerging hypotheses argue that this post-translational modification rivals gene transcription in both depth and breadth as a dominant regulatory mechanism controlling protein activity and abundance. Not surprisingly, studies from mutants of multiple core components of the ubiquitylation system, such as Cullin-RING E3 ligases or 26S proteasome subunits, display either lethal or severe pleiotropic phenotypes relating to plant growth and development. Unfortunately, these types of studies are often not helpful in revealing the functions of individual pathways involving different E3 ligases, the majority of which remain unknown.
Reverse genetics has demonstrated enormous power in functional genomic studies. However, uncovering the specific functions of a large system such as protein ubiquitylation requires more innovative approaches. For example, redundant functions among E3 ligase homologs pose challenges for characterizing their function(s) using insertion mutants but could be solved by recently emerging multiplex CRISPR/Cas9-based knock-out or knock-in approaches. In addition, genomic and evolutionary studies have helped to prioritize research directions. To encourage teamwork and discovery in the field of plant protein ubiquitylation, we here solicit contributions from the community on this topic. For example, if your favorite protein is potentially ubiquitylated or is an E3 ubiquitin ligase, we encourage such research articles to be submitted to this Special Issue, with novel approaches being highly encouraged. In addition, we welcome experts in the field to contribute a review article, thus bringing varied perspectives to the community.
Dr. Zhihua Hua
Dr. Richard S. Marshall
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- ubiquitylation
- degradation
- proteasome
- autophagy
- chloroplast
- E3 ligase
- germination
- growth
- hormone signaling
- flowering
- reproductive development
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