Organellar Glue: A Molecular Tool to Artificially Control Chloroplast-Chloroplast Interactions

Shintaro Ichikawa, Shota Kato, Yuta Fujii, Kazuya Ishikawa, Keiji Numata, Yutaka Kodama

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

Organelles can physically interact to facilitate various cellular processes such as metabolite exchange. Artificially regulating these interactions represents a promising approach for synthetic biology. Here, we artificially controlled chloroplast-chloroplast interactions in living plant cells with our organelle glue (ORGL) technique, which is based on reconstitution of a split fluorescent protein. We simultaneously targeted N-terminal and C-terminal fragments of a fluorescent protein to the chloroplast outer envelope membrane or cytosol, respectively, which induced chloroplast-chloroplast interactions. The cytosolic C-terminal fragment likely functions as a bridge between two N-terminal fragments, thereby bringing the chloroplasts in close proximity to interact. We modulated the frequency of chloroplast-chloroplast interactions by altering the ratio of N- A nd C-terminal fragments. We conclude that the ORGL technique can successfully control chloroplast-chloroplast interactions in plants, providing a proof of concept for the artificial regulation of organelle interactions in living cells.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)3190-3197
Number of pages8
JournalACS Synthetic Biology
Volume11
Issue number10
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 21 2022
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • bimolecular fluorescence complementation (BiFC)
  • chloroplasts
  • Egeria densa
  • mitochondria
  • organelle interaction
  • peroxisome

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Biomedical Engineering
  • Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (miscellaneous)

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