Thread: chloroplast and egg

what would be the result when chloroplast been injected into the egg? will number of chloroplast increase or not after few days?

i don't think the cloroplast will survive, because the egg (from whatever animal species) your talking about, lacks all the extra genes coded in the plant cell nucleaus that support the cloroplast and keep it alive and reproducing

I'm sure this experiment (transferring chloroplasts to animal cells) must have been carried out somewhere, but I can't find an example.

My guess would be that the chloroplast would survive for quite a while (unless there is some cellular immune mechanism that would target the organelle for destruction?) hours? days? As mentioned already, it would be unable to replicate or carry out its metabolic functions since many genes that are located in the plant cell nucleus are required for plastid replication and metabolism.


The best known example from the natural world is in the sea slug Elysia chlorotica. This creature harvests chloroplasts from its prey and incorporates the living chloroplasts into its own tissues, which then provide the animal with energy. To do this, the sea slug is thought to have also taken some essential plant genes and added them to its own genome, through horizontal gene transfer, allowing the chloroplast to carry out many of its functions. They can't replicate though.

That's so cool :P

There would have been no evolution of a mutual or any symbiotic relationship. I predict that the eggs defenses would attack the chloroplasts.

I guess it'd be ok to look at any animal cell rather than just an "egg" like the OP asked.

I did finally manage to find an example of such a study; this one has chloroplasts in mouse fibroblast cells:

Margit M. k. Nass (1969)
Uptake of Isolated Chloroplasts by Mammalian Cells
Science 12 September 1969:
Vol. 165. no. 3898, pp. 1128 - 1131
DOI: 10.1126/science.165.3898.1128

Here's the abstract:

Originally Posted by Margit M. k. Nass in Science (1969)

Mouse fibroblasts (L cells) in suspension culture incorporated isolated chloroplasts of spinach and African violets and isolated mitochondria of chicken liver. The organelles resided in the cell cytoplasm and were not contained in vacuoles or digestion vesicles. Green cells divided like normal cells. Green chloroplasts were followed for five cell generations or 5 days, at which time hybrid cells were greatly outnumbered by nongreen progeny cells. The ingested chloroplasts retained their structural integrity as determined by electron microscopy of organelles and hybrid cells and by analysis of photochemical activity and DNA in chloroplasts reisolated from cells after 1 or 2 days in culture.

Can't read it however since it's locked behind a pay wall (even though it's 40 years old).