Member Institutions:

• Bowling Green State U.
• Cleveland State U.
• Kent State U.
• Medical College of Ohio
• Miami U.
• The Ohio State U.
• Ohio U.
• University of Cincinnati
• University of Toledo
• Wright State U.
• Youngstown State U.

Research Interests

We are interested in the sugar sensing and signal transduction pathway in higher plants. Using a combination of biochemical, genetic and molecular approaches, we have identified the first plant sugar sensor, hexokinase (Plant Cell 6, 1665-1679; Plant Cell 9, 5-19; Trends in Plant Science 2, 208-214). Future projects include: the characterization of transgenic Arabidopsis with aberrant levels of hexokinase, determine HXK dependency in multiple sugar signaling pathways, the identification of other components that are involved in the sugar signal transduction pathway and the investigation of interactions between sugar and hormone signaling pathways.

A second project is to study plant steroid hormone signaling pathway. We have identified several classes of Arabidopsis mutants that are presumably involved in steroid hormone biosynthesis/signaling pathway. A T-DNA tagged brassinolide insensitive mutant with extra long life (ell) and uncontrolled meristematic activity has been analyzed. ell appears to have a lesion in a sterol reductase gene. Future work include: the characterization of the ell mutant, the investigation of the function of ELL, and the analysis of other mutants.

Selected References

• Jang, J.-C., and Sheen, J. 1997 Sugar sensing in higher plants. Trends in Plant Sci.(Review article) 2, 208-214.
• Jang, J.-C., León, P., Zhou, L., and Sheen, J. (1997). Hexokinase as sugar sensor in higher plants. Plant Cell 9, 5-19.
• Jang, J.-C. and Sheen, J. 1996. Hexokinase as sugar sensor in higher plants. The 2nd International IGBP-GCTE Workshop. In "Plant Acclimation to Elevated CO2". pp. 1-4.
• Jang, J.-C., and Sheen, J. (1994). Sugar sensing in higher plants. Plant Cell 6, 1665-1679.

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