The study reveals how Balanophora plants function despite abandoning photosynthesis and, in some species, sexual reproduction. Their plastid genomes shrank dramatically in a shared ancestor, yet the ...

Malaria and related parasites retain a vestigial, but biosynthetically active, plastid organelle acquired far back in evolution from a red algal cell. The organelle appears to be essential for ...

Five different regions of the first foliage leaf of etiolated barley seedlings were studied with respect to leaf growth, plastid growth and replication, differentiation of etioplasts, and conversion ...

Plants produce all the amino acids essential for human life. This commonly occurs in specialized cell organelles, so-called plastids. A research team headed by Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf ...

At the base of mossy trees, deep in the mountains of Taiwan and mainland Japan or nestled in the subtropical forests of Okinawa, grows what most might mistake for a mushroom—but it is actually a very ...

Scientists found molecular evidence supporting the idea that chloroplasts originated as energy-generating organelles and only later evolved to support carbon assimilation in plant cells. One of the ...

The direct demonstration that chloroplast DNA can be incorporated into the nuclear genome of plants, even though it is unlikely that such DNA would be functional, will influence thinking in plant ...

More than a decade ago, plant geneticists noticed something peculiar when they looked at grafted plants. Where two plants grew together, the cells of each plant showed signs of having picked up ...