In agreement with observations made in hibernating animals, increased SUMO-2/3-lyation is readily detectable in cerebral ischemia models (Cimarosti et al., 2008; Yang et al., 2008a, b; Loftus et al., 2009), and microRNA-mediated knockdown of SUMO-2/3 substantially reduces cell survival following ischemic stress (Datwyler et al., 2011), highlighting the critical role for SUMO-2/3 in preventing cell death. The gene discussed is SUMO2; the disease is Cerebral ischemia.