Abstract
The pale cress (pac) mutation arrests chloroplast development at an early stage in Arabidopsis thaliana and leads to a white phenotype. Chlorophyll fluorescence measurements demonstrated that the photosynthetic apparatus was impaired. The mutation did not reduce transcription of nuclear genes with photosynthetic function. However, distinct chloroplast-encoded transcripts were affected. The mutation mainly changed the maturation pattern, but the abundance of specific transcripts was also reduced. The defects observed imply a specific role for PAC in chloroplast mRNA maturation. PAC is encoded by a nuclear gene and is transported into the chloroplast. Therefore PAC may be one of the nucleus-encoded factors that function in plastid mRNA maturation and accumulation.
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Received: 28 October 1997 / Accepted: 23 December 1997
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Meurer, J., Grevelding, C., Westhoff, P. et al. The PAC protein affects the maturation of specific chloroplast mRNAs in Arabidopsis thaliana . Mol Gen Genet 258, 342–351 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1007/s004380050740
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s004380050740