GEE SEMINAR SERIES

Dear All

The speaker for the next seminar is Prof. Conrad Mullineaux.

This seminar is open to all regardless of career stage. Please share details with colleagues, wider networks and those who may be interested.

Location: JZ Young LT, Anatomy & Medical Sciences Building
Host: John Allen

Please email John if you would like a one to one with Conrad.

Title: Cyanobacterial mRNA localisation and chloroplast evolution

Abstract: Cyanobacteria changed the world when they invented oxygenic photosynthesis, which involves the light-powered extraction of electrons from water, with the release of molecular oxygen as a waste product. They subsequently developed thylakoid membranes, a convoluted internal membrane system that houses the membrane complexes required for photosynthesis and respiration. Thylakoid membranes greatly increase the photosynthetic capacity of the cell, but they bring with them new problems in protein sorting and the control of membrane protein assembly. We have been trying to unravel the biogenesis of photosynthetic complexes in cyanobacteria by using fluorescence microscopy to track the locations of the mRNA molecules that encode them and the ribosomes that translate them. The results highlight the importance of mRNA molecules in membrane targeting and co-ordination of the assembly of photosynthetic complexes.
The chloroplasts of plants and algae are descended from free-living cyanobacteria, and they retain many features inherited from their cyanobacterial past, including thylakoid membranes, the photosystems and a residual genome that encodes many of the core photosynthetic proteins. They have also inherited elements of the mRNA targeting machinery that we identified in cyanobacteria. This leads us to suggest that a key reason for retention of a chloroplast genome is the requirement for intimate association of mRNA molecules with the thylakoid membrane.

Thank you