MENU
Research
The Molecular Biology of Chloroplasts
My research has always been linked in some way to the chloroplast - that amazing organelle unique to plants. Originally free-living prokaryotes, chloroplasts still retain vestiges of their once independent state; one such vestige is a small but functional chromosome. Currently my research students and I are studying a tobacco plant which carries a mutation on the chloroplast chromosome. The visible effect of the mutation is the production of young leaves which can't accumulate normal levels of chlorophyll, making them appear a light green. As the leaves mature, however, they recover nearly normal amounts of chlorophyll. In addition to this obvious defect, the mutation also retards chloroplast development, and severely affects the accumulation of proteins coded for by both nuclear and chloroplast genes. We hope that a better understanding of this mutation will tell us something about how nuclear and chloroplast genomes coordinate with each other to produce a functional chloroplast. Some of the projects in progress include: | Isolation of the mutant gene using molecular techniques.
| Analyzing the effect of the mutation on nuclear gene expression.
| Studies on how the mutation retards germination (mutant seeds take much
longer to germinate).
| Studies on how the mutation affects chloroplast development. | |
Last revised: June 14, 2000 - kathleen.archer@trincoll.edu