Nucleus-encoded genes for plastid-targeted proteins in Helicosporidium: functional diversity of a cryptic plastid in a parasitic alga.

ABSTRACT: Plastids are the organelles of plants and algae that house photosynthesis and many other biochemical pathways. Plastids contain a small genome, but most of their proteins are encoded in the nucleus and posttranslationally targeted to the organelle. When plants and algae lose photosynthesis, they virtually always retain a highly reduced "cryptic" plastid. Cryptic plastids are known to exist in many organisms, although their metabolic functions are seldom understood. The best-studied example of a cryptic plastid is from the intracellular malaria parasite, Plasmodium, which has retained a plastid for the biosynthesis of fatty acids, isoprenoids, and heme by the use of plastid-targeted enzymes. To study a completely independent transformation of a photosynthetic plastid to a cryptic plastid in

SUBMITTER: de Koning AP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC522598 | biostudies-literature | 2004 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature