Research Field

The research what we are doing is focused on regulatory noncoding RNAs in eukaryotes. During decades, these repertoire of RNAs having little or no protein-coding capacity have been discovered and their functions have been unveiled, and those discoveries suggest that they are one of a top-tier regulating factors in crucial biological events such as developmental processes (differentiation, proliferation) and stress responses in diverse organisms including animals and plants. 

Our laboratory do analyzes a number of types of noncoding RNAs across diverse organisms in animals and plants. Not only we try to find a novel source of noncoding RNAs, but also we investigate their functional roles and biological significances. Furthermore, we attempt to develop RNAi-based technologies and try to apply on agronomic area.

Here is the summary of a part of noncoding RNA types what we are mainly studying.

• Small RNAs : microRNAs, heterochromatic siRNAs, phased siRNAs, Piwi-interacting RNAs

  • Small regulatory RNAs are typically in sizes of ranges of 20-30 nucleotides and elicit profound changes in the genome and transcriptome of the host by targeting both chromatins and transcripts. They are involved in many biological processes as diverse as developmental timing, cell differentiation, cell proliferation, cell death, metabolic control, transposon silencing and antiviral defence. 

  • We currently investigate various aspects of small RNA biogenesis, targeting and functions in animals and fungi, primarily employing biochemistry, molecular biology as well as bioinformatic approaches. Furthermore, we investigate and reveal the impact of RNA binding proteins (RBPs)  on microRNA targeting in human, and are trying to identify RBPs affecting microRNA targeting and causing detrimental events (i.e. cancer) in human.

  • In plants, we aim to identify and characterize small RNAs and their targets in agronomically valuable crop plants, such as rice and chili pepper, each of which is most important agricultural crop both in worldwide and Korea. Now we focus on the roles of small RNAs regulating epigenomic states in crop seeds and their dormancy status.

• Long non-coding RNAs : long intergenic noncoding RNAs, antisense noncoding RNAs

  • A novel class of regulatory noncoding RNAs whose significance is recently emerging is long intergenic noncoding RNAs (lincRNAs), which are defined as non-protein-coding transcripts of sizes of >200 nucleotides transcribed from intergenic regions. LincRNAs seem to regulate nearby protein-coding genes through a variety of mechanisms, with one emergent theme being their association with chromatin-modifying machineries. 

  • Recent genome-wide studies in mammals identified over a thousand highly conserved lincRNAs and led to preliminary hypotheses about their involvement in diverse biological processes from stem cell pluripotency to cell cycle regulation. However, their study in plants remains comparatively in its infancy although in-depth analyses of the transcriptional outputs of the model plant genomes have suggested the existence of numerous putative lincRNAs. We start to investigate the biological significance of lincRNAs in the model plant rice, specifically focusing on their roles in abiotic stress responses.