Abstract
Amyloplasts are a differentiated form of plastids that serve for synthesis and storage of starch. Amyloplasts have double envelope membranes and divide by binary fission, as the leaf chloroplasts do. So far, research into the molecular mechanisms of plastid division has been conducted mainly using chloroplasts from leaf or algal cells. It remains unknown whether proliferation of non-photosynthetic plastids follows the 'chloroplast division model' in higher plants. In this study, we focus on the mechanisms of amyloplast proliferation in seed integuments of Arabidopsis. Using four chloroplast division mutants (arc5, arc6, minD and minE) and transgenic lines expressing stroma-targeted fluorescent proteins, we visualised and investigated amyloplast populations in outer ovule integument cells of the mutants. It was indicated that the control of amyloplast division is considerably different from that of chloroplasts.
