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Membranes and Plastid Origins

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Origins of Plastids

Abstract

It is generally agreed that the inner of the two membranes that enclose the photosynthetic compartment of chloroplasts evolved from the plasma membrane of a prokaryotic symbiont. The source of the outer of the two membranes is perhaps less certain. The earlier view was that it had evolved from the (endo)membrane of the vacuole in which the symbiont had been sequestered following endocytosis by a eukaryotic host cell. This hypothesis has been challenged on the bases that, firstly, the outer envelope membrane differs in its chemical composition from eukaryotic endomembranes but resembles that of prokaryotic membranes and, secondly, in spite of repeated claims, there is no substantial evidence that the outer membrane ever becomes continuous with other components of the host cell’s endomembrane system.

The second of these criticisms can now be refuted. Using the technique of ultra-rapid freezing and fracturing, we have shown that in the green alga Chara globularis, the lower vascular plant Equisetum telmateia,the young leaves of the angiosperm Phaseolus vulgaris, and the flowers of Narcissus pseudonarcissus, the outer membrane of the plastid envelope and the ER membrane are frequently and regularly found to be continuous. In Chara and Equisetum the plastids involved are chloroplasts, in Phaseolus they are proplastids and in Narcissus they are chromoplasts. Thus, membrane continuity has now been clearly shown in all four of the tissues examined and it is consistently found in association with each of these very different types of plastid.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Plant Sciences, Oxford University, Oxford, OX1 3RB, UK

    Jean M. Whatley

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  1. Jean M. Whatley
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  1. Marine Biology Research Division, 0202 Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, 92093-0202, USA

    Ralph A. Lewin

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© 1992 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Whatley, J.M. (1992). Membranes and Plastid Origins. In: Lewin, R.A. (eds) Origins of Plastids. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-2818-0_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-2818-0_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-6218-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4615-2818-0

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