On the origin of plastids

Abstract

The buoyant density in CsCl of ribosomes from chloroplasts of the green alga Chlorella pyrenoidosa and two species of higher plants, Pisum sativum and Chenopodium album, has been studied. From the relative protein content it was calculated that 70S ribosomes from chloroplasts are much smaller than 80S cytoplasmic ribosomes (3.0-3.1 X 10(6) and 4.0 X 10(6) daltons) and slightly larger than 70S ribosomes from bacteria (E. coli 2.5 X 10(6) daltons). Chloroplast ribosomes from pea seedlings were analyzed by two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. They appear to contain 71 proteins. This indicates that chloroplast ribosomes contain a larger number of proteins than do the ribosomes from E. coli and other species of Enterobacteriaceae. Further study will permit a probable evaluation of the validity of Mereschkowsky's hypothesis that the photosynthetic plastids of eukaryotic plant cells are the evolutionary descendants of endosymbiotic blue-green algae.