Developmental changes in the levels of SDS-extractable polypeptides during plastid morphogenesis

A quantitative estimation of the levels of plastidic SDS-extractable polypeptides as separated by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis is described to demonstrate the practicality of such an approach. Using an internal standard of cytochrome c and expressing all polypeptide levels as cytochrome c relative stain equivalents, the levels of most polypeptides from developing Avena plastids change relative to the period of greening especially over the period 12-20 h. Some changes in certain polypeptides can be shown to be due to plastid senescence rather than plastid development. There is also a distinct difference in the pattern of polypeptides when plastids are isolated from different laminar regions. An incubation study using etioplasts showed of the original 8 polypeptides, six were retained, two were lost, another two were formed during incubation but eleven polypeptides found in the in situ study never appeared.