Prof. Masamitsu Wada: "The Mechanism of Chloroplast Photorelocation Movement"

Prof. Masamitsu Wada
FRIAS Senior Fellow, School of Life Sciences – LIFENET
National Institute for Basic Biology, Japan

The Mechanism of Chloroplast Photorelocation Movement

Chloroplast photorelocation movement is a phenomenon important not only for efficient photosynthesis under weak light condition, but also for plant survival under strong light condition. These physiological responses in green plants from algae to seed plants are known as accumulation movement and avoidance movement, respectively. Very recently we found in Arabidopsis leaves a novel structure made of short actin filaments that appears between the chloroplast and the plasma membrane.  It disappears within a minute when chloroplasts are irradiated with strong light and reappears within several minutes thereafter at the front side of the moving chloroplasts. We named these structures chloroplast actin filaments. I would like to study the fine structure using electron microscopy in Freiburg.