Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 5, 2026

Using Changes in Leaf Transmission to Investigate Chloroplast Movement in Arabidopsis thaliana
Published on: July 14, 2021
Changes in chloroplast number during pea leaf development : An analysis of a protoplast population
G K Lamppa1, L V Elliot, A J Bendich
1Department of Botany, AJ-10, University of Washington, 98195, Seattle, WA, USA.
Abstract:
Protoplasts were prepared from pea (Pisum sativum L.) leaves throughout development and their contents spread in a monolayer to determine the number of chloroplasts per cell. This approach permitted the rapid analysis of more than 100 cells at each stage of development. The average number of chloroplasts per cell increased from 24±10 to 64±20 during greening and expansion of the first true foliage leaves; all cells containing chloroplasts apparently increase their chloroplast number. A parallel increase in the amount of DNA per nucleus was not observed. As the leaves senesced the chloroplast number gradually decreased to 44±12. We have correlated these changes with our previous results on the percentage of chloroplast DNA per cell. Chloroplast multiplication resulted in a 2.7-fold dilution (from 272 to 102) of the number of copies of the chloroplast DNA molecule per plastid.
More Related Videos
14:20Measuring the Osmotic Water Permeability Coefficient Pf of Spherical Cells: Isolated Plant Protoplasts as an Example
Published on: October 8, 2014
10:28Preparation of Chloroplast Sub-compartments from Arabidopsis for the Analysis of Protein Localization by Immunoblotting or Proteomics
Published on: October 19, 2018
Related Concept Videos
The Anatomy of Chloroplasts
Structure of...
Anatomy of Chloroplasts
Light Acquisition
Comparing Mitochondrial, Chloroplast, and Prokaryotic Genomes