MinD is a ubiquitous ATPase that plays a crucial role in selection of the division site in eubacteria, chloroplasts, and probably Archaea. In four green algae, Mesostigma viride, Nephroselmis olivacea, Chlorella vulgaris and Prototheca wickerhamii, MinD homologues are encoded in the plastid genome. However, in Arabidopsis, MinD is a nucleus-encoded, chloroplast-targeted protein involved in chloro- plast division, which suggests that MinD has been transferred to the nucleus in higher land plants. Yet the lateral gene transfer (LGT) of MinD from plastid to nucleus during plastid evolution remains poorly understood. Here, we identified a nucleus-encoded MinD homologue from unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, a basal species in the green plant lineage. Overexpression of CrMinD in wild type E. coli inhibited cell division and resulted in the filamentous cell formation, clearly demon- strated the conservation of the MinD protein during the evolution of photosynthetic eukaryotes. The transient expression of CrMinD-egfp confirmed the role of CrMinD protein in the regulation of plastid division. Searching all the published plastid genomic sequences of land plants, no MinD homologues were found, which suggests that the transfer of MinD from plastid to nucleus might have occurred be- fore the evolution of land plants.
LIU WeiZhongHU YongZHANG RunJieZHOU WeiWeiZHU JiaYingLIU XiangLinHE YiKun
A nucleus-encoded MinE gene, designated PpMinE, from Physcomitrella patens was identified using RT-PCR. The presence of both N- and C-terminal extensions in PpMinE protein suggested its cyanobacterial origin. The transient expression of PpMinE using green fluorescent protein fusion in tobacco （Nicotiana tabacum L.） indicated that the PpMinE was a chloroplast-targeted protein. Overexpression of PpMinE in Escherichia coli caused division site misplacement and minicell formation, suggesting evolutionary functional conservation of MinE during plant phylogenesis. According to the phylogenetic tree, PpMinE protein has a close relationship with the highland plants, which suggests that the transfer events of MinE gene from plastid to nucleus might have occurred before the origin of the land plants.
Chloroplasts are plant-specific organelles that evolved from endosymbiotic cyanobacteria. They divide through binary fission. Selection of the chloroplast division site is pivotal for the symmetric chloroplast division. In E. coli, positioning of the division site at the midpoint of the cell is regulated by dynamic oscillation of the Min system, which includes MinC, MinD and MinE. Homologs of MinD and MinE in plants are involved in chloroplast division. The homolog of MinC still has not been identified in higher plants. However, an FtsZ-like protein, ARC3, was found to be involved in chloroplast division site positioning. Here, we report that chloroplast division site positioning 1 （AtCDP1） is a novel chloroplast division protein involved in chloroplast division site placement in Arabidopsis. AtCDP1 was discovered by screening an Arabidopsis cDNA expression library in bacteria for colonies with a cell division phenotype. AtCDP1 is exclusively expressed in young green tissues in Arabidopsis. Elongated chloroplasts with multiple division sites were observed in the loss-of-function cdpl mutant. Overexpression of AtCDP1 caused a chloroplast division phenotype too. Protein interaction assays suggested that AtCDP1 may mediate the chloroplast division site positioning through the interaction with ARC3. Overall, our results indicate that AtCDP1 is a novel component of the chloroplast division site positioning system, and the working mechanism of this system is different from that of the traditional MinCDE system in prokaryotic cells.
Min ZhangYong HuJingjing JiaDapeng LiRunjie ZhangHongbo GaoYikun He
