Sung

Sibum Sung

	Assistant Professor Ph.D. University of Wisconsin at Madison 2004 sbsung@mail.utexas.edu Office BIO 401A (512) 232-0867 Sung Lab home page


Our research interests focus on the genetic, molecular and biochemical understandings of plant development through plant-environment interactions. We are particularly interested in the epigenetic regulation of the floral transition by environmental cues, such as temperature and photoperiod. The prolonged cold of winter, known as vernalization, is one such cue that certain plants use to acquire competence to flower the following spring. In Arabidopsis, vernalization results in the mitotically stable repression of the potent floral repressor, FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC). The molecular nature of this environmentally-induced epigenetic change has been a fascinating question in plant biology. We have shown that the series of Histone modifications are involved in the epigenetic repression of FLC by vernalization. Furthermore, the diversity of Histone modifications that are related with vernalization-mediated epigenetic changes suggests that FLC chromatin could be used for the model system to study Histone biology in plants. We would like to use this environmentally-induced epigenetic switch as a model system to study chromatin remodeling in eukaryotes

Selected Publications 2006 Sung S. , Schmitz, R. and Amasino, R. M. , A PHD finger protein involved in both the vernalization and photoperiod pathways in Arabidopsis., Genes and Development 20, p. 3244-3248. 2006 Sung S. , He, Y. ,Eshoo, T. W. , Tamada, Y. ,Johnson, L. ,Nakahigashi, K. , Goto, K. , Jacobsen, S. E. and Amasino, R. M. , Epigenetic maintenance of the vernalized state in Arabidopsis thaliana requires LIKE HETEROCHROMATIN PROTEIN 1, Nature Genetics 38, p. 706-710 2005 Sung, S. and Amasino, R. M. , To remember winter: Towards a molecular understanding of vernalization, Annual Review in Plant Biology 56, p. 491-508. 2004 Sung, S. and Amasino, R. M. , Vernalization and epigenetics: how plants remember winter, Current Opinion in Plant Biology 7, p. 4-10. 2004 Sung, S. and Amasino, R. M. , Vernalization in Arabidopsis thaliana is mediated by the PHD finger protein VIN3, Nature 427, p. 159-164 .

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