International Journal of Molecular Sciences Review The Ubiquitin Conjugating Enzyme: An Important Ubiquitin Transfer Platform in Ubiquitin-Proteasome System Weigang Liu 1,2, Xun Tang 2,3, Xuehong Qi 2,3, Xue Fu 2,3, Shantwana Ghimire 1,2, Rui Ma 1, Shigui Li 1, Ning Zhang 3 and Huaijun Si 1,2,3,* 1 College of Agronomy, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou 730070, China;
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[email protected]; Tel.: +86-931-7631875 Received: 3 March 2020; Accepted: 15 April 2020; Published: 21 April 2020 Abstract: Owing to a sessile lifestyle in nature, plants are routinely faced with diverse hostile environments such as various abiotic and biotic stresses, which lead to accumulation of free radicals in cells, cell damage, protein denaturation, etc., causing adverse effects to cells. During the evolution process, plants formed defense systems composed of numerous complex gene regulatory networks and signal transduction pathways to regulate and maintain the cell homeostasis. Among them, ubiquitin-proteasome pathway (UPP) is the most versatile cellular signal system as well as a powerful mechanism for regulating many aspects of the cell physiology because it removes most of the abnormal and short-lived peptides and proteins.