Abstract
The various metabolic activities of plastids require continuous exchange of reactants and products with other organelles of the plant cell. Physical interactions between plastids and other organelles might therefore enhance the efficiency of plant metabolism. We have observed a close apposition of plastids and nuclei in various organs of Nicotiana tabacum and Arabidopsis thaliana. In hypocotyl epidermal cells, plastids and stromules, stroma-filled tubular extensions of the plastid envelope membrane, were observed to reside in grooves and infoldings of the nuclear envelope, indicating a high level of contact between the two organelle membranes. In a number of non-green tissues, including suspension-cultured cells, perinuclear plastids were frequently associated with long stromules that extended from the cell center to the cell membrane. In cotyledon petioles, cells lying adjacent to one another frequently contained stromules that met on either side of the shared cell wall, suggesting a means of intercellular communication. Our results therefore suggest that stromules have diverse roles within plant cells, perhaps serving as pathways between nuclei and more distant regions of the cell and possibly even other cells.
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Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to Jim Haseloff (University of Cambridge, UK) for the gift of mGFP4, mGFP5 and mCFP; and to Susan Wilkie (University College London, UK) for the Asp5 gene. The rbcS-3A coding region was kindly provided by Danny Schnell (University of Massachusetts, Amherst). N. tabacum expressing untargeted and nuclear-targeted GFP were generated by Rainer H. Köhler. Two-photon microscopy was conducted at the Cornell University Nanobiotechnology Center with the assistance of Carol Bayles. This research was supported by a grant to MRH from the Energy Biosciences Program of the United States Department of Energy (DE FG02-89ER14030). EYK was supported by a grant from the NSF/DOE/USDA Cornell Training Group in Molecular Mechanisms of Plant Processes.
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Communicated by J.M. Widholm
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Kwok, E.Y., Hanson, M.R. Plastids and stromules interact with the nucleus and cell membrane in vascular plants. Plant Cell Rep 23, 188–195 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00299-004-0824-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00299-004-0824-9