Coalescence and directed anisotropic growth of starch granule initials in subdomains of Arabidopsis thaliana chloroplasts

Abstract

Starch is the major form of energy storage in plant cells and forms discrete, semi-crystalline granules within plastids. Here the authors use electron tomography and nanoSIMS to show that Arabidopsis starch granules initiate in stromal pockets between thylakoid membranes that coalesce before growing anisotropically.