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Chloroplasts, containing thylakoids, visible in the cells of Ptychostomum capillare, a type of moss. A chloroplast (/ ˈ k l ɔːr ə ˌ p l æ s t,-p l ɑː s t /) [1] [2] is a type of organelle known as a plastid that conducts photosynthesis mostly in plant and algal cells.
These organisms perform photosynthesis through organelles called chloroplasts and are believed to have originated about 2 billion years ago. [1] Comparing the genes of chloroplast and cyanobacteria strongly suggests that chloroplasts evolved as a result of endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria that gradually lost the genes required to be free-living.
Within the envelope membranes, in the region called the stroma, there is a system of interconnecting flattened membrane compartments, called the thylakoids.The thylakoid membrane is quite similar in lipid composition to the inner envelope membrane, containing 78% galactolipids, 15.5% phospholipids and 6.5% sulfolipids in spinach chloroplasts. [3]
Evidence for primary endosymbiosis includes the presence of a double membrane around the chloroplasts; one membrane belonged to the bacterium, and the other to the eukaryote that captured it. Over time, many genes from the chloroplast have been transferred to the nucleus of the host cell through endosymbiotic gene transfer (EGT).
For example, chloroplasts in plants and green algae have lost all phycobilisomes, the light harvesting complexes found in cyanobacteria, red algae and glaucophytes, but instead contain stroma and grana thylakoids. The glaucocystophycean plastid—in contrast to chloroplasts and rhodoplasts—is still surrounded by the remains of the ...
The glaucophytes are of interest to biologists studying the evolution of chloroplasts as they may be similar to the original algal type that led to the red algae and green plants, i.e. glaucophytes may be basal Archaeplastida. [1] [7] [4] Unlike red and green algae, glaucophytes only have asexual reproduction. [8]
Chloroplasts have their own genome, which encodes a number of thylakoid proteins. However, during the course of plastid evolution from their cyanobacterial endosymbiotic ancestors, extensive gene transfer from the chloroplast genome to the cell nucleus took place. This results in the four major thylakoid protein complexes being encoded in part ...
The chloroplasts of red algae have chlorophylls a and c (often), and phycobilins, while those of green algae have chloroplasts with chlorophyll a and b without phycobilins. Land plants are pigmented similarly to green algae and probably developed from them, thus the Chlorophyta is a sister taxon to the plants; sometimes the Chlorophyta, the ...