Provides a thorough overview of current research with the green alga Chlamydomonas on chloroplast and mitochondrial biogenesis and function, with an emphasis on the assembly and structure-function relationships of the constituents of the photosynthetic apparatus. Contributions emphasize the multidisciplinary nature of current research in photosynthesis, combining molecular genetics, biochemical, biophysical, and physiological approaches. The 36 articles address topics including nuclear genome organization; RNA stability and processing; splicing; translation; protein targeting in the chloroplast; photosystems; pigments; glycerolipids; the ATP synthase; and ferrodoxin and thioredoxin. Further contributions address new measurements methods for photosynthetic activity in vivo; starch biosynthesis; the responses of Chlamydomonas to various stress conditions; nitrogen assimilation; and mitochondrial genetics. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This second edition volume expands on the previous edition with updated chapters in model systems and new crops. The book contains protocols for plastid engineering in leaves, tissue culture cells, and the shoot apex of plants, as well as for marker excision from the plastid genome and engineering Rubisco, the key enzyme of photosynthesis. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Cutting-edge and practical, Chloroplast Biotechnology: Methods and Protocols, Second Edition is a valuable resource for researchers who wish to enter the field, and for practitioners looking for insights of applications in agriculture, industrial biotechnology and healthcare.

Methods for Plant Molecular Biology is a collection of articles that focuses on the techniques used in plant molecular biology and genetics. The book discusses the isolation and characterization of nuclear, chloroplast, and mitochondrial nucleic acids and the factors and systems involved in transcription and gene expression. Procedures for the isolation of cell walls, chloroplast membranes, membrane proteins; techniques to carry out plant cell culture and protoplast formation; and methods for gene and organelle transfer are covered as well. Biologists, molecular biologists, botanists, and students will find the book very useful.

Chloroplasts are essential for the survival and flourishing of life on Earth. Over the years, chloroplast biology has been studied in a variety of different organisms, leading to the significant disadvantage that findings which were made by using different experimental systems or species were not always directly cross-comparable. The relatively recent adoption of Arabidopsis thaliana as the model organism of choice for plant science research, across the globe, has led to its emergence as a pre-eminent system for research on chloroplasts and other types of plastid. In Chloroplast Research in Arabidopsis: Methods and Protocols, expert researchers bring together some of the most important, modern techniques and approaches for chloroplast research, with the unifying theme of Arabidopsis as the model system. Volume I explores topics such as genetics, cytology, in vivo analysis, gene expression, and protein accumulation, as well as protein transport, localization, and topology. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular BiologyTM series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Authoritative and convenient, Chloroplast Research in Arabidopsis: Methods and Protocols serves as an ideal reference for all researchers with a general interest in chloroplasts, plastids, or related processes.

The Molecular Biology of Plastids: Cell Culture and Somatic Cell Genetics of Plants, Volume 7A deals with various aspects of plastid nucleic acid and protein metabolism. This book is organized into 10 chapters. Chapter 1 provides the introduction to the molecular biology of plastids, followed by a discussion of the maps of restriction endonuclease sites on chloroplast chromosomes in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 focuses on chloroplast gene transmission, while Chapters 4 to 7 describe the apparatus for nucleic acid and protein metabolism and how some transcripts of chloroplast genes are processed. The ribosomal proteins, ribosomes, and translation in plastids are covered in Chapter 8. The last two chapters consider the organization, operation, and transport of polypeptides through the outer plastid membranes. This volume is a good reference for plant molecular biologist, genetic engineers, and researchers conducting work on the molecular biology of chloroplasts.

Chloroplasts are vital for life as we know it. At the leaf cell level, it is common knowledge that a chloroplast interacts with its surroundings – but this knowledge is often limited to the benefits of oxygenic photosynthesis and that chloroplasts provide reduced carbon, nitrogen and sulphur. This book presents the intricate interplay between chloroplasts and their immediate and more distant environments. The topic is explored in chapters covering aspects of evolution, the chloroplast/cytoplasm barrier, transport, division, motility and bidirectional signalling. Taken together, the contributed chapters provide an exciting insight into the complexity of how chloroplast functions are related to cellular and plant-level functions. The recent rapid advances in the presented research areas, largely made possible by the development of molecular techniques and genetic screens of an increasing number of plant model systems, make this interaction a topical issue.

The past decade has witnessed an explosion of our knowledge on the structure, coding capacity and evolution of the genomes of the two DNA-containing cell organelles in plants: chloroplasts (plastids) and mitochondria. Comparative genomics analyses have provided new insights into the origin of organelles by endosymbioses and uncovered an enormous evolutionary dynamics of organellar genomes. In addition, they have greatly helped to clarify phylogenetic relationships, especially in algae and early land plants with limited morphological and anatomical diversity. This book, written by leading experts, summarizes our current knowledge about plastid and mitochondrial genomes in all major groups of algae and land plants. It also includes chapters on endosymbioses, plastid and mitochondrial mutants, gene expression profiling and methods for organelle transformation. The book is designed for students and researchers in plant molecular biology, taxonomy, biotechnology and evolutionary biology.

Molecular biology, particularly molecular genetics, is among the newest and most powerful approach in modern photosynthesis research. Development of molecular biology techniques has provided new methods to solve old problems in many biological disciplines. Molecular biology has its greatest potential for contribution when applied in combination with other disciplines, to focus not just on genes and molecules, but on the complex interaction between them and the biochemical pathways in the whole organism. Photosynthesis is surely the best studied research area in plant biology, making this field the foremost candidate for successfully employing molecular genetic techniques. Already, the success of molecular biology in photosynthesis has been nothing short of spectacular. Work performed over the last few years, much of which is sum marized in this volume, stands in evidence. Techniques such as site-specific mutagenesis have helped us in examining the roles of individual protein domains in the function of multiunit complexes such as the enzyme ribulose-l ,5-bisphos phate carboxylase/oxygenase (RUBISCO) and the oxygen evolving photo system (the photosystem II). The techniques of molecular biology have been very important in advancing the state of knowledge of the reaction center from the photosynthetic bacteria whose structure has been elegantly deduced by H. Michel and 1. Deisenhofer from the X-ray studies of its crystals.