Year: 2022

FAMILY OF PLANT PLASTIDS. "In plants, the chloroplast is only one of a number of plastids that include proplastids, etioplasts, chromplasts, leucoplasts, amyloplasts, elaioplasts, proteinoplast or aleuronoplasts and gerontoplasts. These plastids display different morphologies, perform specialized functions and store various biochemical compounds during plant development. Under certain conditions, plastid types can interconvert." http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167488912002844 View in LinkedIn

CHLOROPLAST EVOLUTION. "Chloroplasts originated from endosymbiotic cyanobacteria, with the original symbiotic event estimated to have occurred approximately 1.5 billion years ago. In order to achieve a mutually beneficial endosymbiosis, two major events happened. First, the endosymbiont transferred the bulk of its genes to the host genome, and second, it developed protein import systems to translocate proteins from the host cytoplasm back into the endosymbiont." http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167488912002844 View in LinkedIn

STREAMLINED CHLOROPLAST BACTERIUM. "Over time, most genes of the primary endosymbiont were lost or transferred to the host genome, resulting in a highly reduced chloroplast genome encoding core elements of the photosynthetic machinery." https://lnkd.in/eDtPqWt View in LinkedIn

HORIZONTAL GENE TRANSFER. "In addition to the large contribution of genetic material to algal genomes through endosymbiosis (endosymbiotic gene transfer, EGT), several genes have been introduced to nuclear and organelle genomes independently through horizontal gene transfer (HGT) events. The nuclear genomes of the diatoms Thalassiosira pseudonana and Phaeodactylum tricornutum contain several hundred genes that appear to have been acquired from a wide range of bacteria through HGT." https://lnkd.in/eDtPqWt View in LinkedIn

NUCLEAR DOMINANCE. "Plastids and mitochondria derive from prokaryotic symbionts that lost most of their genes after the establishment of endosymbiosis. In consequence, relatively few of the thousands of different proteins in these organelles are actually encoded there. Most are now specified by nuclear genes." https://lnkd.in/ePgs9VJ View in LinkedIn

BEYOND STREAMLINING. "The genome of extant chloroplasts encodes only ~ 100 proteins. Accordingly, more than 95% of chloroplast proteins are nuclear encoded, synthesized in the cytoplasm as precursor proteins and post-translationally imported into the plastids." http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167488912002844 View in LinkedIn

FOSSIL RELIC OR CLEAR STRATEGY? "Chloroplasts contain their own genome that is a relic of the endosymbiont that gave rise to the organelle. The coding capacity of the plastome is limited, it only encodes 75–80 proteins of the 3500–4000 proteins present in the chloroplast." https://lnkd.in/ewFu3YE View in LinkedIn

COMPLEX CO-EVOLUTION. "As they co-evolved with their host cells, the original endosymbionts lost most of their genetic repertoires, either definitively or through transfer to the host’s nuclear genome. In parallel, having picked up suitable signal sequences, the products of many nuclear genes of endosymbiotic origin were re-routed back to their original compartment, together with new nucleus-encoded proteins, via intracellular trafficking routes." https://lnkd.in/ePgs9VJ View in LinkedIn

BURSTS OF DIVERSIFICATION. "Gene transfer from bacteria to eukaryotes is episodic and coincides with major evolutionary transitions at the origin of chloroplasts and mitochondria." https://lnkd.in/ePgs9VJ View in LinkedIn

REMARKABLE BLIND SPOT. "As yet, no single prediction program and no single proteomics experiment can accurately identify the full complement of proteins located in plastids or mitochondria." (2016). https://lnkd.in/ePgs9VJ View in LinkedIn