Abstract
During development of multicellular organisms including plants and animals, stem cells provide new cells to establish their organs by driving the mitotic cell cycle. The cell division and the stem cell identity formation are tightly regulated to ensure the orchestrated organ development. In spite of their biological importance of stem cell activities, the molecular mechanisms controlling the processes are largely unidentified. Recently, we discovered that the Small ubiquitin related modifier (SUMO) mediated posttranslational modification system is required for the regulation of cell cycle progression and stem cell maintenance. high ploidy (hpy2) mutant lacks proper meristem structure and the cell proliferation activities, suggesting that HPY2, a novel SUMO E3 ligase, may modulate the processes positively. In this study, we analyzed the regulatory mechanisms of the HPY2 expression and the biological processes which HPY2 is involved in. We will discuss about the newly discovered molecular insights of the meristem development especially focusing on the SUMO-mediated processes.
