[SCAN] Degrading to build: how E3-ubiquitin ligases can help to understand rice stress responses

Title: Degrading to build: how E3-ubiquitin ligases can help to understand rice stress responses 

Tiago Lourenço 

Abstract: Rice is one of the most important crops worldwide and a traditionally important crop in Portugal, but it is very sensitive to abiotic stresses. Over the last decades, an enormous effort has been made to identify key-players regulating stress responses in rice (mainly transcriptional regulators and functional genes). However, still little is known regarding how the proteome pool is modulated under stress, especially by the Ubiquitin-Proteasome system (UPS). In rice, a large number of E3-ubiquitin ligases remain uncharacterized and despite the increasing importance of the UPS, there are still few reports that have associated E3-ubiquitin ligases (and respective targets) to stress modulation. Our group as already contributed to this effort, especially in the identification and characterization of a rice RING E3-ubiquitin ligase (OsHOS1) associated with cold stress response, thigmomorphogenesis (response to touch) and jasmonic acid (hormone) signalling. In this talk, I will show an overview of my research project that aims to functionally characterize RING E3-ubiquitin ligases, and their targets, in response to abiotic stress in rice.