Average width of interthylakoidal stromal space

Value 3.6 nm Range: ±0.5 nm
Organism Chlamydomonas reinhardtii
Reference Engel, B. D., Schaffer, M., Kuhn Cuellar, L., Villa, E., Plitzko, J. M., and Baumeister, W. (2015). Native architecture of the Chlamydomonas chloroplast revealed by in situ cryo-electron tomography. Elife 4, 1–29. p.4 bottom paragraph & p.14 2nd paragraphPubMed ID25584625
Method in situ cryo-electron tomography
Comments P.4 bottom paragraph: "Throughout the chloroplast, thylakoids were most commonly found in stacks of variable length but uniform spacing. Thylakoid stacks had a lateral repeat distance of 22.4 ± 1.3 nm, with 4.9 ± 0.5 nm thylakoid membranes, 9.0 ± 1.4 nm thylakoid lumina, and 3.6 ± 0.5 nm interthylakoid stromal spaces (± denotes standard deviation, n = 38 thylakoids from eight stacks)." P.14 2nd paragraph: "Unlike higher plants, algal chloroplasts do not have a distinct division between grana and stroma thylakoids. Comparing the structures of algal and higher plant thylakoid stacks may shed light on the evolution of photosynthetic systems. The Chlamydomonas interthylakoid stromal space (3.6 nm) is comparable to the grana interthylakoid stromal space (3.2–3.6 nm) (Daum et al., 2010 Kirchhoff et al., 2011), indicating that the molecular mechanisms that hold two algal or higher plant thylakoid membranes together may be similar."
Entered by Avi Flamholz
ID 111327