[Plant_Biology] Evolutionary linkage between eukaryotic cytokinesis and chloroplast division by...

Initiative Research Program, Advanced Science Institute, RIKEN, 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako, Saitama 351-0198, Japan; and ‡Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba, 1-1-1 Tennoudai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8572, Japan Edited by Lynn Margulis, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, and approved August 12, 2008 (received for review March 11, 2008) Abstract Chloroplasts have evolved from a cyanobacterial endosymbiont and been retained for more than 1 billion years by coordinated chloroplast division in multiplying eukaryotic cells. Chloroplast division is performed by ring structures at the division site, encompassing both the inside and the outside of the two envelopes. A part of the division machinery is derived from the cyanobacterial cytokinetic activity based on the FtsZ protein. In contrast, other... [read full story]