Plastid division coordination across a double-membraned structure

Chloroplasts still retain components of the bacterial cell division machinery and research over the past decade has led to an understanding of how these stromal division proteins assemble and function as a complex chloroplast division machinery. However, during evolution plant chloroplasts have acquired a number of cytosolic division proteins, indicating that unlike the cyanobacterial ancestors of plastids, chloroplast division in higher plants require a second division machinery located on the chloroplast outer envelope membrane. Here we review the current understanding of the stromal and cytosolic plastid division machineries and speculate how two protein machineries coordinate their activities across a double-membraned structure. (C) 2007 Federation of European Biochemical Societies. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.