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Plastids - Types, Structure and Functions of Plastids

MVSAT 2024

The plastid is a membrane-bound organelle found in the cells of plants, algae, and various other eukaryotic organisms. Plastids were discovered and named by E. Haeckel, but A. F. W. Schimper was the first to deliver a clear definition. Plastids are the location for the manufacture and storage of important chemical compounds used by the cells of autotrophic eukaryotes. They often comprise pigments used in photosynthesis, and the kinds of pigments in a plastid determine the cell's color. They have a mutual evolutionary origin and possess a double-stranded DNA molecule that is circular, like that of prokaryotic cells.


Plastid is one more important energy-transducing cell organelle found only in plants.  Schimper invented the name Plastids for those structures responsible for photosynthesis.  In reality, photosynthesis transports chemical energy straight or indirectly, for all other living organisms, Chloroplasts are exclusive organelles for they are capable of capturing, converting, and conserving solar energy in the form of chemical energy.  Plastids are commonly found in almost all cells of the plant body either in the form of colorless plastids or colored plastids or proplastids.


In Plants

Plastids that have chlorophyll can carry out photosynthesis and are called chloroplasts. Plastids can also accumulate products like starch and can produce fatty acids and terpenes, which can be used for producing energy and as raw material for the synthesis of other molecules. For example, the constituents of the plant cuticle and its epicuticular wax are made by the epidermal cells from palmitic acid, which is synthesized in the chloroplasts of the mesophyll tissue. All plastids are derived from proplastids, which are existing in the meristematic regions of the plant. Proplastids and young chloroplasts normally divide by binary fission, but more mature chloroplasts also have this capacity.


Plastids may distinguish into several forms, depending upon which purpose they play in the cell. Identical plastids (proplastids) may develop into any of the following variants:

  • Chloroplasts: green plastids for photosynthesis; 

  • Chromoplasts: colored plastids for pigment is synthesis and storage

  • Gerontoplasts: regulate the dismantling of the photosynthetic apparatus during plant senescence

  • Leucoplasts: colorless plastids for monoterpene combination; leucoplasts sometimes differentiate into more specialized plastids:

  • Amyloplasts: for starch storage and become aware of gravity (for geotropism)

  • Elaioplasts: for fat storing

  • Proteinoplasts: for storing and altering protein

  • Tannosomes: for synthesizing and creating tannins and polyphenols


Depending on their morphology and function, plastids have the skill to differentiate or redifferentiate, between these and other forms.


Each plastid produces multiple copies of a circular 75–250 kilobase plastome. The number of genome copies per plastid is inconstant, ranging from more than 1000 in quickly dividing cells, which, in general, contain few plastids, to 100 or less in mature cells, where plastid separations have given rise to many plastids. The plastome contains about 100 genes encoding ribosomal and transfer ribonucleic acids (rRNAs and tRNAs) as well as proteins that are involved in photosynthesis and plastid gene transcription and translation. On the other hand, these proteins only characterize a small fraction of the total protein set-up necessary to build and to keep the structure and function of a particular type of plastid. Plant nuclear genes convert the huge bulk of plastid proteins, and the expression of plastid genes and nuclear genes is strongly co-regulated to coordinate the proper growth of plastids in relation to cell differentiation.


Plastid DNA survives as large protein-DNA complexes associated with the internal envelope membrane and is called 'plastid nucleoids'. Each nucleoid particle may cover more than 10 copies of the plasmid DNA. The proplastid contains a particular nucleoid located in the center of the plastid. The rising plastid has many nucleoids, local at the periphery of the plastid, unlike the inner envelope membrane. During the development of proplastids to chloroplasts, plastids convert from one type to another, nucleoids change in morphology, size, and location within the organelle. The remodeling of nucleoids is believed to happen by modifications to the composition and large quantity of nucleoid proteins.


Several plastids, mainly those responsible for photosynthesis, possess numerous internal membrane layers.


In Algae

In algae, the name leucoplast is used for all unpigmented plastids. Their role is to differ from the leucoplasts of plants. Etioplasts, amyloplasts, and chromoplasts are plant-specific and do not take place in algae. Plastids in algae and hornworts may also vary from plant plastids in that they contain pyrenoids.


Glaucophyte algae contain muroplasts, which are alike to chloroplasts but they have a peptidoglycan cell wall that is parallel to that of prokaryotes. Red algae comprise rhodoplasts, which are red chloroplasts that permit them to photosynthesize to a depth of up to 268 m. The chloroplasts of plants vary from the rhodoplasts of red algae in their skill to synthesize starch, which is deposited in the form of granules within the plastids. In red algae, floridean starch is produced and stored outside the plastids in the cytosol.


Classification

On the foundation of the presence or absence of pigments, and the phase of development, plastids have been classified into proplastids, leucoplasts, and chromoplasts.


Proplastids

Minor vesicular structures present in meristematic cells are called proplastids.  They are colorless and immature.  As cells mature into other cell types, depending upon the organs and presence or absence of light, proplastids undergo change and develop into either colorless leucoplasts or colored chromoplasts together with green chloroplasts. Proplastids constantly divide and redivide and provide them for cells undergoing differentiation into various types.

    

Leucoplasts

Colorless plastids that are present in storage parenchyma and other colorless tissues are mentioned as leucoplasts.  Most of them behave as storage organelles.  Based on the kind of chemicals they store they are further divided into amyloplasts.  If such leucoplasts are open to sunlight they will be altered into colored plastids, which advise that these plastids have recollected all the genetic potentiality to develop and perform photosynthesis. 


Chromoplasts

All plastids containing several colored pigments are band together under chromoplasts, in which green colored ones are known as chloroplasts.  Depending upon the main pigments present in plastids, they are further divided into Protoplasts rich in red pigment i.e. phycoerythrin.  Phaeoplasts and Xanthoplasts have yellow pigments i.e. xanthophylls, carotenoids.  Along with the above pigments, phycocyanin and other pigments are also present in other colored plastids. 


Additional Plastids:  Such colored plastids, other than chloroplasts, are mainly found in a certain class of plants and plant organs containing floral parts. Though floral parts are derived from the same type of proplastids, it produces different pigments in petals.  The exact method of differentiation is not known for different plants to make different colored petals and it is genetically encoded. 


Interconversion

Proplastids split and redivide in meristematic cells, and then they are spread to cell derivatives on exposure to light, depending upon the buildings in which they were found and also depending upon the intracellular aspects they grow into colorless plastids or colored plastics.  Leucoplasts on exposure to light change into green plastids.  Similarly, chloroplasts can become leucoplasts; but colored plastids as in petals are mostly terminally distinguished.


Structure

All green plastids, for that matter every kind of plastids are surrounded by two-unit membranes; i.e. outer and inner of 7 nm thick membranes, and they are separated by a periplastid space of 8-10 nm thick.  Nothing like mitochondria, the inner membrane of fully developed plastids does not show any inward foldings; but it plays an active role during the development of proplastids into mature plastids.  Chloroplast is completely filled with a liquid called stroma, in which highly organized membrane structures are found they are called grana.  Apart from grana, the stromatic fluid contains a host of enzymes, plastid DNA, RNAs, and 70s ribosomes.


Biogenesis

Plastids are usually inherited through the parental side as in the case of mitochondria.  During the development of plant structures, proplastids multiply and they are evenly or unevenly spread among daughter cells.  Every cell in the plant body has plastids.  The arrangement of inheritance itself indicates that plastids are derived from pre-existing plastids. 


To begin with, proplastids have a paracrystalline lattice in stroma.  With the start of light as the stimulus (red light is enough), the gene for aminoleuvulinic acid synthetase is down, and in the sense, it is activated.  The product of gene appearance is ALA synthetase.  Though out the development of chloroplasts it is interdependent of nuclear genes and plastogenome expression at several stages of development, chloroplasts show autonomy.  For example, the separation of proplastids in Euglena is free of cell division, but further development needs the products of both nuclear genes and plastogenes.


When proplastids are exposed to light they slowly turn green and enlarge in size.  This is accompanied by the development of granal assemblies.  During these periods, the inner chloroplast membrane produces numerous finger-shaped invaginations. They, in turn, pinch off several membranous vesicles, which are gathered at the center.  The vesicles start merging with one another and finally organize into clusters of thylakoid membranes called Grana.  Once the development of chloroplast is completed the invaginations of inner membranes dissolve.


Plastids by feature have their own genetic material and ribosomal translating machinery that exhibits a semi-autonomous state within the cells. The inheritance shape also demonstrates the same.  Inheritance of chloroplasts is a nurturing and non-Mendelian cytoplasmic type.  The Mendelian arrangement is controlled by the nuclear genome, but the cytoplasmic inheritance is controlled by the plastogenome.  Though plastids have their own genome, they also need the co-ordination of nuclear genes and its products for the end of the development of chloroplasts.


Such interactions between plastogenome and nuclear genome can be seen during the development of proplastids into green chloroplasts.  It is very well known that chloramphenicol, an antibiotic, inhibits the translation of 70s ribosome mediated protein synthesis.  On the other hand, cycloheximide stops cytosolic 80s ribosome mediated protein synthesis.  If CAP is added during the greening of proplastids, pigments will continue to accumulate in the thylakoid membranes, but electron transport activity is also inhibited.  In addition to this the membrane vesicles created by inner plastid membranes fuse with one another to form thylakoid membranes.  On the other hand, if CHI is added during the development of proplastids, greening is stopped, but the thylakoid membrane formation takes place partially (50%).  The above results suggest that there is a communication between the nuclear genome and plastogenome products in the biogenesis of thylakoids and its components.


Studies in this respect show that a huge number of protein complexes found in chloroplasts are also found to be nuclear gene products and 120 or so proteins are coded for by the plastid genome.  For example, ferredoxin and plastoquinones linked proteins, 32KD protein of photosystem II, some of the LHP proteins for Chl. A/b of PS II small subunit protein part of RUB carboxylase is coded for by the nuclear genome.  On the other hand, the making of small subunits of RUBP carboxylase which is vital for the expression of large RUBP subunit is the product of nuclear gene.  Another exciting observation is that one of nuclear gene product disturbs the binding of RNA polymerase to plastid DNA.  The RNA polymerase is a product of plastid genome.  However, there is no clear-cut information to show that plastogenome products regulate the nuclear gene expression which is required for plastid development.


Perhaps the organelle genetic systems are an evolutionary end. In the context of the endosymbiont hypothesis, this would mean that the method whereby the endosymbionts transferred most of their genes to the nucleus inhibited before it was complete. Further transfers may have been ruled out, for mitochondria, by new alterations in the mitochondrial genetic code that made the remaining mitochondrial genes nonfunctional if they were transported to the nucleus.


More about Plastids

The double membrane organelles found in the cells of plants and algae are called plastids. They are also found in some eukaryotic organisms. They are of endosymbiotic origin. The main function of plastids is to manufacture and store food. Often plastids contain some pigments that are present in photosynthesis and some plastids contain different types of pigments which can change the colors of the cell.


The concept of plastids is briefly discussed in Chapter 8 called Cell – Structure and Functions. It is a Biology Chapter of Class eight, Science, NCERT book. This chapter forms the basis of Biology as it covers various terms who's understanding is necessary in order to study further, it includes a detailed analysis of a cell, it shows varieties of cells, parts of the cell are discussed like the cell membrane, cytoplasm, nucleus and a brief comparison of plant and animal cells is given. Therefore it is extremely important to have a good grasp of this Chapter. plastids are an important yet briefly discussed topic in the Chapter cell – structure and functions. 


Therefore, Vedantu has separately created resources on the topic of plastids so that students can get a comprehensive understanding and can learn many new details about plastids that are extremely important in the study of Biology. The article on Vedantu about plastids contains detailed information on the various types of plastids, their classification, interconversion of plastids, structure, biogenesis, and various other details that are necessary to understand as they can be asked in the examination.


There are various types of plastids having specialized functions. Some plastids are classified according to their stages of development and on the presence or absence of biological pigments.


They are as follows- chloroplasts, chromoplasts, protoplasts, leucoplasts, proplastid, ectoplasm, amyloplast, elaioplast, and proteinoplast.


Chloroplasts- These are found in the mesophyll of the plant cell. Chloroplast is semi-porous, biconvex, double-membrane organelles. They help in synthesizing food by the process of photosynthesis.


Leucoplasts- These are mainly found in the non-photosynthetic parts of the plant, for example, the roots. Leucoplasts are colorless, non-pigmented organelles. Their main function is that they are used for converting amino acids and fatty acids. There are three types of leucoplast – amyloplasts, proteinoplasts, elaioplasts. 


Gerontoplasts- These types of plastids function mainly in the autumn season, that is they go with the aging process of leaves, protoplasts convert into different organelles when leaves no longer perform photosynthesis.


Key Elements Important in the Study of Plastids

  • The Cell

  • Organisms show Variety in Cell Number, Shape and Size

  • Cell Structure and Function

  • Parts of the cell-cell membrane,  cytoplasm, nucleus

  • Comparison of Plant and Animal Cells

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FAQs on Plastids

1. What are Chromoplasts?

Chromoplast falls under the category of plastids. Chromoplast is heterogeneous organelles whose main function is pigment synthesis and storage in a plant. Chromoplast is mainly found in aging leaves, fruits, and flowering plants. They are carotenoid accumulating plastids. Chloroplast convert into chromoplast and students sometimes forget the minute difference between chloroplast and chromoplast. The carotenoid pigment present in chromoplast allows us to see different colors in the leaves and fruits. It produces different colors to attract pollinators.

2. What are plastids?

The double-membrane organelles found in the cells of plants and algae are called plastids. They are also found in some eukaryotic organisms. They are of endosymbiotic origin. The main function of plastids is to manufacture and store food. Often plastids contain some pigments that are present in photosynthesis and some plastids contain different types of pigments which can change the colors of the cell. A more detailed analysis of plastids can be found by reading the notes provided by Vedantu on plastids and various other topics can be studied at Vedantu's website that is related to it.

3. Where can I find the detailed analysis of plastids?

A detailed analysis of plastids is available on Vedantu‘s website, the notes provided by Vedantu are precise and detailed and contain the latest information on the topic that is being discussed the article on plastics contains information about plastids in plants, plastids in algae, it explains the types of plastids, its structure, biogenesis. Along with these, other topics are also discussed on Vedantu‘s website which is related to plastids. Students who are wanting to get a clear grasp of the various terminologies discussed in science can refer to Vedantu as they have made separate notes on every topic.

4. What are Proplastids?

Proplasters give rise to plastids, they are small, colorless organelles. It is found in the meristematic regions of the plant. Plastids are derived from proplastids. When The cell containing a proplastid starts to mature it transforms and develops into either colorless leucoplasts or colored chromoplasts having specialized functions. To get a more clear perspective on proplastids, students should go through the study notes provided by Vedantu, they will give you a comprehensive understanding of the topic and will increase your knowledge about the same.


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