Abstract
A white sector of variegated leaves is composed of living cells with aberrant plastids. While recent studies revealed genes responsible for leaf variegation, the precise mechanism forming such sectors remains unknown. Previously, we demonstrated that white sectors of var2 contain undeveloped plastids and that these plastids contain distinct nucleoids, a structure of DNA-protein complexes. Nucleoids, detectable by staining the Technovit thin sections of leaf tissues with DAPI, change their morphologies according to chloroplast differentiation. In this study, we attempt to understand structural changes of plastid nucleoids in developing leaves of several species (Arabidopsis and barley), compare them to those in variegated leaves, and classify plastids of variegated plants based on the status of nucleoid morphologies. Our initial studies showed that plastid nucleoids change their size, number and position during greening. Observation of plastids in various variegated leaves is currently underway.
