Chloroplast
Chloroplast are the signature organelle of eucaryotic organisms capable of photosynthesis. They are tiny, somewhat football-shaped, bacteria-sized structures, a few micrometers in size, and there are up to several hundred in cells with high photosynthetic rates. Each chloroplast is a compartmentalized structure whose boundary consists of two membranes. The membranes contains a semiliquid matrix, called the stroma, that suspends a system of membranes, called thylakoids. The thylakoids are stacked membranes (grana) embeded with molecules of chlorophyll and other pigments that absorb energy from sunlight, the initiating step of the physico-chemical process of photosynthesis.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
The domain eukarya includes photosynthesis-capable organisms in two of its four kingdoms,[6] namely plantae (the plant kingdom) and protista (the protist kingdom), the former including photosynthesis-capable algae, mostly single-celled or colonizing members of the plant kingdom, and the green plants we see all around us The protista including diatoms, dinoflagellates, euglenids, and other members of the protist kingdom, a mixed group of mostly single-celled organisms.
References and footnotes cited in text as superscripts
- ↑ Hall DO, Rao KK. (1999) Photosynthesis. 6th ed. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-64257-4. | Google Books preview.
- ↑ Blankenship RE (2002) Molecular Mechanisms of Photosynthesis. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 0632043210; ISBN 978-0632043217
- ↑ Cooper GM, Hausman RE. (2009) Chloroplasts and Other Plastids. In: The Cell: A Molecular Approach Fifth Edition, pp. 452-459. Sinauer Associates, Inc.
- ↑ Stern KR, Bidlack JE, Jansky S. (2008) Plastids. In: Introductory Plant Biology. 11th ed. pp. 41-42. Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education. ISBN 9780072830675.
- ↑ Hoober JK. (2000) Chloroplast structure and development. In: Photosynthesis: A Comprehensive Treatise. A.S. Raghavendra,editor. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521784443. | Google Books preview, pp. 3-19. | Table of Contents. | Twenty-six chapters covering a broad range of topics in photosynthesis.
- ↑ Note: See Kingdom (biology) for a more detailed discussion of the taxonomy of kingdoms in eukarya.