Abstract
Chloroplast gene expression in higher plants is thought to be regulated mainly at the post-transcriptional level. To study mRNA translation in the chloroplast, we have improved the in vitro translation system derived from tobacco chloroplasts. The new system had about 100-fold higher translation activity when compared to the previous system. Using GFP reporter gene, we established non-radioactive detection system to measure mRNA translation activity. We are currently analyzing cis-elements and trans-acting factors that are required for efficient translation initiation, and the results will be presented.
