Abstract
Unusually for prokaryotes, cyanobacteria have a complex intracytoplasmic membrane system: the thylakoid membranes. The thylakoid membrane proteome is strikingly different from that of the plasma membrane. The factors that direct some proteins to the thylakoids and others to the plasma membrane remain unknown. Recent work suggests that localised protein synthesis centres play a major role in thylakoid membrane biogenesis, predicting that mRNAs encoding thylakoid proteins should be localised to these centres. We will use single-molecule RNA-FISH to probe mRNA localisation, testing the hypothesis that the signals that direct proteins to specific membranes reside in the mRNA, not the polypeptide.
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