Host-endosymbiont co-evolution shaped chloroplast translational regulation

ABSTRACT

The interaction between organisms and their environment generates evolutionary forces able to modify a living species. The process of gene expression, from the transcription of information encoded in a gene to the synthesis of a functional polypeptide, largely relies on evolution, which plays a significant role in determining the factors that control and regulate gene expression. Nowadays, chloroplasts are the result of a complex evolutionary history, elicited by the intracellular cohabitation of an ancient photosynthetic cyanobacterium inside a mitochondriate eukaryotic cell. In this paper, we try to describe the recent investigations on mechanisms that regulate chloroplast translation, both in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and in land plants. After a general description of plastid translational machinery, ribosome structure with related proteins and nuclear-encoded proteins regulating plastid translation in these organisms, we focus on specific examples of chloroplast translation regulation in the green lineage. In the end, we provide a comparison between plastid translation regulation in green algae and land plants, showing that in both cases chloroplast gene expression is prevalently regulated at post-transcriptional and translational level, although with different strategies.

KEYWORDS:

• Chloroplasts
• translational regulation
• Chlamydomonas reinhardtii
• ribosome structure
• land plants

Author contribution statement

MBE and AP designed the review. MBE, MBA and FDM wrote the manuscript with comments from AP.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Francesca De Marchis

Francesca De Marchis is a researcher at the Institute of Biosciences and Bioresources of the National Research Council of Italy in Perugia.

Andrea Pompa

Andrea Pompa is a researcher at the Department of Biomolecular Sciences of the University Carlo Bo in Urbino.

Matteo Ballottari

Matteo Ballottari is Associate Professor at Department of Biotechnology of the University of Verona.

Michele Bellucci

Michele Bellucci is a researcher at the Institute of Biosciences and Bioresources of the National Research Council of Italy in Perugia.