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Updated: Feb 27, 2026

Preparation of Chloroplast Sub-compartments from Arabidopsis for the Analysis of Protein Localization by Immunoblotting or Proteomics
Published on: October 19, 2018
Sorting of nuclear-encoded chloroplast membrane proteins
Dong Wook Lee1, Junho Lee2, Inhwan Hwang3
1Division of Integrative Biosciences and Biotechnology, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Pohang 37673, Republic of Korea.
Abstract:
Among the many organelles in eukaryotic cells, chloroplasts have the most complex structure, with multiple suborganellar membranes, making protein targeting to chloroplasts, particularly to various suborganellar membranes, highly challenging. Multiple mechanisms function in the biogenesis of chloroplast membrane proteins. Nuclear-encoded nascent proteins can be targeted to the outer envelope membrane directly from the cytosol after translation, but their targeting to the inner envelope and thylakoid membranes requires multiple steps, including cytosolic sorting, translocation across the envelope membranes, sorting in the stroma, and insertion into their target membranes. In this review, we discuss the current knowledge about the sorting mechanisms of proteins to the two envelope membranes and the thylakoid membrane, along with perspectives for future research.
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