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Molecular Plant Advance Access published online on October 29, 2009
Molecular Plant, doi:10.1093/mp/ssp083
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© The Author 2009. Published by the Molecular Plant Shanghai Editorial Office in association with Oxford University Press on behalf of CSPP and IPPE, SIBS, CAS.

The Chlamydomonas Chloroplast HLP Protein Is Required for Nucleoid Organization and Genome Maintenance

Daniel Karcher, Dietrich Köster, Anne Schadach, Anja Klevesath and Ralph Bock1

Max-Planck-Institut für Molekulare Pflanzenphysiologie, Am Mühlenberg 1, D-14476 Potsdam-Golm, Germany

1 To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail rbock{at}mpimp-golm.mpg.de, fax +49 331 567 8701, tel. +49 331 567 8700.

The chloroplasts genome (plastome) occurs at high copy numbers per cell. Several chloroplast genome copies are densely packed into nucleoprotein particles called nucleoids. How genome packaging occurs and which proteins organize chloroplast nucleoids are largely unknown. Here, we have analyzed the Chlamydomonas reinhardtii homolog of the bacterial architectural DNA-binding protein HU, the histone-like protein HLP. We show that the Chlamydomonas HLP protein is targeted to chloroplasts and associates with nucleoids. Knockdown of HLP gene expression by RNA interference (RNAi) alters the structure of chloroplast nucleoids and appears to reduce the level of compaction of chloroplast DNA. Unexpectedly, also chloroplast genome copy numbers are significantly decreased in the RNAi strains, suggesting that, in addition to its architectural role in nucleoid formation, the HLP protein is also involved in chloroplast genome maintenance.

Key Words: Chloroplast • nucleoid • Chlamydomonas reinhardtii • HLP • DNA-binding protein • genome maintenance


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