Researchers Identify New Protein Necessary for Chloroplast Development

20 August 2008

Scientists at Michigan State University have identified a new protein necessary for chloroplast development, a discovery that could support the development of plant varieties optimized for biofuel production. The research is published in the August issue of the journal The Plant Cell.

Chloroplasts are specialized compartments in plant cells that convert sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into sugars and oxygen during photosynthesis. The newly discovered protein, trigalactosyldiacylglycerol 4, or TGD4, offers insight into how the process works.

Nobody knew how this mechanism worked before we described this protein. This protein directly affects photosynthesis and how plants create biomass (stems, leaves and stalks) and oils.

—Christoph Benning, MSU professor of biochemistry and molecular biology

Understanding how TGD4 works may allow scientists to create plants that would be used exclusively to produce biofuels, possibly making the process more cost-effective. Most plants that are used to produce oils—corn, soybeans and canola, for example—accumulate the oil in their seeds.

We’ve found that if the TGD4 protein is malfunctioning, the plant then accumulates oil in its leaves. If the plant is storing oil in its leaves, there could be more oil per plant, which could make production of biofuels such as biodiesel more efficient. More research is needed so we can completely understand the mechanism of operation.

—Christoph Benning

Other members of the MSU research team are: Changcheng Xu, research assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology; Jilian Fan, research technician; and Adam Cornish, biochemistry undergraduate student at the time of the research and current graduate student.

The research was funded by the Energy Department and the National Science Foundation. Benning’s research also is supported by the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station.

Resources

• Changcheng Xu, Jilian Fan, Adam J. Cornish, and Christoph Benning (2008) Lipid Trafficking between the Endoplasmic Reticulum and the Plastid in Arabidopsis Requires the Extraplastidic TGD4 Protein, The Plant Cell, doi: 10.1105/tpc.108.061176