In contrast to animal and fungal cells, green plant cells contain one or multiple chloroplasts, the organelle(s) in which photosynthetic reactions take place. Chloroplasts are believed to have originated from an endosymbiotic event and contain DNA that codes for some of their proteins. Most chloroplast proteins are encoded by the nuclear genome and imported with the help of sorting signals that are intrinsic parts of the polypeptides. Here, we show that a chloroplast-located protein in higher plants takes an alternative route through the secretory pathway, and becomes N-glycosylated before entering the chloroplast.

Glutaredoxins (Grxs) are small ubiquitous proteins of the thioredoxin (Trx) family, which catalyze dithiol-disulfide exchange reactions or reduce protein-mixed glutathione disulfides. In plants, several Trx-interacting proteins have been isolated from different compartments, whereas very few Grx-interacting proteins are known. We describe here the determination of Grx target proteins using a mutated poplar Grx, various tissular and subcellular plant extracts, and liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry detection. We have identified 94 putative targets, involved in many processes, including oxidative stress response [peroxiredoxins (Prxs), ascorbate peroxidase, catalase], nitrogen, sulfur, and carbon metabolisms (methionine synthase, alanine aminotransferase, phosphoglycerate kinase), translation (elongation factors E and Tu), or protein folding (heat shock protein 70). Some of these proteins were previously found to interact with Trx or to be glutathiolated in other organisms, but others could be more specific partners of Grx. To substantiate further these data, Grx was shown to support catalysis of the stroma beta-type carbonic anhydrase and Prx IIF of Arabidopsis thaliana, but not of poplar 2-Cys Prx. Overall, these data suggest that the interaction could occur randomly either with exposed cysteinyl disulfide bonds formed within or between target proteins or with mixed disulfides between a protein thiol and glutathione.

Mapping of in vivoThe thylakoid membranes in chloroplasts of plants and green algae carry out oxygenic photosynthesis. Two multisubunit pigment-containing protein complexes, photosystem II (PSII) 1 and photosystem I (PSI), located in this membrane system work in series to generate an electrochemical potential gradient of protons across the membrane following vectorial electron flow from PSII to PSI via the cytochrome b 6 f complex. PSII uses light to oxidize water, whereas PSI, via a second photoact, uses reducing equivalents derived from PSII to reduce NADP ϩ to NADPH. The electrochemical potential gradient of protons is used to power conversion of ADP to ATP (1). Several thylakoid membrane proteins that make up the PSII complex and its LHCII (light-harvesting chlorophyll a/b-binding proteins of PSII) antennae undergo light-and redox-dependent phosphorylation (2, 3) as discovered more than 2 decades ago (4 -6). Phosphorylation of LHCII in plants and algae controls photosynthetic state transitions, which optimize efficient use of the absorbed light energy by both photosystems. Thus, in State 1 more energy is transferred to PSII, whereas in State 2 a proportion of the excitation energy is redistributed to PSI (7-9). The essential role of protein phosphorylation in state transitions has recently been proven in the studies using mutants of Arabidopsis thaliana plants and the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii deficient in protein kinases STN7 (9) and Stt7 (8), respectively. However, despite the generally assumed similarity in thylakoid protein phosphorylation between plants and algae and a high homology between the plant STN7 and the algal Stt7 protein kinases (8), the extent of photosynthetic state transitions differs between these species. In plant thylakoids, only 15-20% of LHCII participates in the lateral migration between the photosystems, whereas up to 80% of the excitation energy absorbed by the LHCII antenna can be redistributed from PSII to PSI in green alga (8 -10).