Abstract
A mutation in CRL of Arabidopsis thaliana causes a severe defect in plastid division. Besides the inhibition of plastid division, the mutation causes distortion of cell division planes and abnormality in cell differentiation (Plant J., 38, 448-459, 2004). Our previous results indicated that CRL protein mainly localized in the outer envelope membrane of plastids. However, we recently found that a functional CRL-GFP protein localizes on small vesicle besides plastids. We expressed a deletion series of CRL protein that were fused to YFP in plant cells and revealed that a stretch of hydrophobic amino acid residues at N-terminal is required for plastid-localization of CRL. We are now analyzing amino acid sequences that are responsible for vesicle localization of CRL. We are also investigating whether Toc and Tic proteins exist in CRL containing vesicles by immunohistochemical analysis. These results will be presented.
