Proximity labelling allows to study novel factors in chloroplast development

Chloroplast development is initiated by light-signals triggering the expression of nuclear encoded chloroplast genes in a first phase, followed by massive structural changes in the transition from proplastids to mature chloroplasts in the second phase. While the molecular players involved in the first phase are currently emerging, regulatory components of the second phase, demanding high plastid translational capacity and RNA processing, are still enigmatic. This is mostly due to the very limited amount of plant material at the early phases of development that makes biochemical studies such as identifying protein interaction networks very difficult. To overcome this problem, we developed a TurboID-based proximity labelling workflow that requires only very limited sample amounts to obtain mechanistic insights into protein interaction networks present in the early stages of plastid development. We used the CGL20a protein, a novel factor involved in chloroplast development, as bait for in vivo proximity labelling in developing seedlings 7 days after germination. We found that CGL20a resides in a nexus of RNA binding proteins mainly associated to ribosomal RNA (rRNA) including different ribosome-associated proteins. One-sentence summaryThe use of plastid-specific in vivo proximity labelling in Arabidopsis seedlings allows to identify novel components in chloroplast development in higher plants.