Plastid division

Plastids undergo a process of binary fission in order to replicate. Plastid replication is required at two distinct stages of plant growth: during cell division to ensure correct plastid segregation, and during cell expansion and development to generate large populations of functional plastids, as in leaf mesophyll cells. This review considers some of the recent advances in the understanding of how plastids undergo binary fission, a process which uses several different proteins, both internal and external to the plastid, which have been derived from the original endosymbiont's genome as well as new proteins that have been recruited from the host genome.

Several of the proteins currently used in this process in higher plants have homologues in modern-day bacteria. An alternative mode of replication by a budding-type mechanism also appears to be used in some circumstances. The review also highlights how most of our knowledge of plastid division is centred on the chloroplast developing in leaf mesophyll cells and a role for plastid division during the development of other plastid types is poorly understood. Whilst models for a protein-based mechanism have been devised, exactly how the division process is controlled at the plastid level and at the plastid population level is poorly understood.