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Updated: Aug 24, 2026

Using Changes in Leaf Transmission to Investigate Chloroplast Movement in Arabidopsis thaliana
Published on: July 14, 2021
Velocity of chloroplast avoidance movement is fluence rate dependent
Takatoshi Kagawa1, Masamitsu Wada
1Institute of Applied Biochemistry, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba 305-8572, Japan.
Abstract:
In Arabidopsis leaves, chloroplast movement is fluence rate dependent. At optimal, lower light fluences, chloroplasts accumulate at the cell surface to maximize photosynthetic potential. Under high fluence rates, chloroplasts avoid incident light to escape photodamage. In this paper, we examine the phenomenon of chloroplast avoidance movement in greater detail and demonstrate a proportional relationship between fluence rate and the velocity of chloroplast avoidance. In addition we show that the amount of light-activated phototropin2, the photoreceptor for the avoidance response, likely plays a role in this phenomenon, as heterozygous mutant plants show a reduced avoidance velocity compared to that of homozygous wild type plants.
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