Number of grana stacks in mature chloroplast

Range 40 to 60 Stacks/chloroplast
Organism Chloroplast
Reference Staehelin LA. Chloroplast structure: from chlorophyll granules to supra-molecular architecture of thylakoid membranes. Photosynth Res. 2003 76(1-3):185-96. p.187 left column top paragraphPubMed ID16228577
Comments "The cylindrical stacks of appressed membranes correspond to the grana structures described by A. Meyer. The non-stacked thylakoids are known as stroma thylakoids, because they are in direct contact with the stroma. According to this definition, the top and bottom membranes of the grana stacks are also stroma thylakoids. Mature chloroplasts may contain 40 to 60 grana stacks with diameters of 0.3 to 0.6µm. The number of thylakoids per stack in mature thylakoids varies from <10 in high light chloroplasts to as many as 100 thylakoids in the extreme shade plant Alocasia macrorhiza (Goodchild et al. 1972)."
Entered by Uri M
ID 107013