CHLOROPLASTS AND GENES

ScienceWeek: "One of the consequences of this partitioning of genetic information is that processes which take place inside chloroplasts necessarily require input from two different compartments. For example, the photosynthetic complexes of the thylakoid membranes comprise core subunits encoded by the chloroplast genome, and peripheral subunits encoded by the nuclear genome. To ensure that these complexes are assembled in stoichiometric fashion, and to enable their rapid reorganization in response to changing environmental cues, the activities of the nuclear and chloroplast genomes must be closely coordinated through intracellular signalling."