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Faculty
Enamul Huq
Associate Professor in Molecular Cell & Developmental Biology

Email: huq@mail.utexas.edu
Website
Main Office: BIO 21B
Phone: 471-9848

Alternate Office: BIO 21/22
Alt. Phone: 471-6658

Mailing Address
The University of Texas at Austin - ICMB
1 University Station A6700
205 W. 24th St.
Austin ,TX 78712-1095
Enamul Huq

Research Summary

Our research is aimed at understanding light signal transduction, specifically those pathways mediated by the phytochrome (phy) family of sensory photoreceptors that absorb light in the red and far-red region of the spectrum. The phy system, consisting of five members in Arabidopsis (phyA-phyE), controls almost every aspect of the plant life cycle including seed germination, de-etiolation and flowering time. To understand early phy signaling events, phy interacting factors, such as PIF1, have been isolated and characterized. PIF1 is a basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factor that interacts strongly with the biologically active form of phyA and phyB. PIF1 overexpression and pif1 mutants showed defective seedling de-etiolation including, aberrant hypocotyl elongation and developmentally regulated loss of greening, suggesting that PIF1 is a key regulator of the phy-mediated control of seedling de-etiolation process. Future projects include investigating the molecular function of PIF1, identifying and functionally characterizing PIF1 interacting proteins and PIF1 target genes using biochemical, genetic and functional genomic approaches.