CHLOROPLAST DIVISION AND EXPANSION IS RADICALLY ALTERED BY NUCLEAR MUTATIONS IN ARABIDOPSIS-THALIANA

We have isolated three mutants of Arabidopsis thaliana in which there is a sevenfold change in chloroplast number in fully expanded leaf mesophyll cells and increases and decreases in chloroplast number are compensated for by changes in chloroplast size. The changes are stably inherited in sexual crosses for three generations and mutant phenotypes are effected by changes at single recessive nuclear loci, termed arc loci. This is the first report of large, stably inherited changes in chloroplast number in higher plants, and represents a major advance toward the genetic dissection of the control of chloroplast division.