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Updated: May 5, 2026

Preparation of Chloroplast Sub-compartments from Arabidopsis for the Analysis of Protein Localization by Immunoblotting or Proteomics
Published on: October 19, 2018
Plant cells contain two functionally distinct vacuolar compartments
N Paris1, C M Stanley, R L Jones
1Biochemistry Department, University of Missouri Columiba 65211, USA.
Abstract:
The plant cell vacuole has multiple functions, including storage of proteins and maintenance of an acidic pH where proteases will have maximal activity. It has been assumed that these diverse functions occur in the same compartment. Here, we demonstrate that antibodies to two different tonoplast intrinsic proteins, alpha-TIP and TIP-Ma27, label vacuole membranes of two different compartments within the same cell. These compartments are functionally distinct, because barley lectin, a protein stored in root tips, is exclusively contained within the alpha-TIP compartment, while aleurain, a protease that serves as a marker for an acidified vacuolar environment, is exclusively contained within the TIP-Ma27 compartment. As cells develop large vacuoles, the two compartments merge; this may represent a process by which storage products in the alpha-TIP compartment are exposed to the acidic lytic TIP-Ma27 compartment for degradation.
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