Biogenesis of thylakoid assembly in 3D

During seedling greening, chloroplasts are formed from proplastids. Liang and Zhu et al. used a combination of 3D electron tomography of cryo-fixed Arabidopsis cotyledons at various times after illumination to track their development. The fine structure images, accompanied by transcriptomic analysis and immunogold labelling studies, provide a detailed picture of the developmental changes that occur during plastid biogenesis, particularly the formation of the thylakoid structures. Additionally, the authors analyze mutants deficient in chloroplast ribosome production and a dynamin-like protein involved in thylakoid membrane fusion. (Summary by Mary Williams) Plant Cell 10.1105/tpc.17.00972