A cis cold memory element and a trans epigenome reader mediate Polycomb silencing of FLC by vernalization in Arabidopsis

Yuehui He and colleagues show that VAL1 and VAL2 bind to a cis-regulatory element at the FLC locus and are required for its epigenetic silencing during vernalization in Arabidopsis. They further report that VAL proteins recognize the repressive histone mark H3K27me3 and are necessary for genomic binding of the Polycomb silencing partner LHP1.