Chloroplast relocation movement in the liverwort Apopellia endiviifolia

Changes in the subcellular localisation of chloroplasts help optimise photosynthetic activity under different environmental conditions. In many plants, this movement is mediated by the blue-light photoreceptor phototropin. A model organism with simple phototropin signalling that allows clear observation of chloroplasts would facilitate the study of chloroplast relocation movement. Here, we examined this process in the simple thalloid liverwort Apopellia endiviifolia. Transverse sections of the thallus tissue showed uniformly developed chloroplasts and no air chambers; these characteristics enable clear observation of chloroplasts and analysis of their movements under a fluorescence stereomicroscope. At 22°C, the chloroplasts moved to the anticlinal walls of cells next to the neighbouring cells in the dark (dark-positioning response), whereas they moved towards weak light (accumulation response) and away from strong light (avoidance response). When the temperature was reduced to 5°C, the chloroplasts moved away from weak light (cold-avoidance response). Hence, both light- and temperature-dependent chloroplast relocation movements occur in A. endiviifolia. Notably, the accumulation, avoidance and cold-avoidance responses were induced under blue-light but not under red-light. These results suggest that phototropin is responsible for chloroplast relocation movement in A. endiviifolia and that the characteristics are similar to those in the model liverwort Marchantia polymorpha. RNA sequencing and Southern blot analysis identified a single copy of the PHOTOTROPIN gene in A. endiviifolia, indicating that a simple phototropin signalling pathway functions in A. endiviifolia. We conclude that A. endiviifolia has great potential as a model system for elucidating the mechanisms of chloroplast relocation movement.