Preparation of Chloroplast Sub-compartments from Arabidopsis for the Analysis of Protein Localization by Immunoblotting or Proteomics

Chloroplasts are major components of plant cells. Such plastids fulfill many crucial functions, such as assimilation of carbon, sulfur and nitrogen as well as synthesis of essential metabolites. These organelles consist of the following three key sub-compartments. The envelope, characterized by two membranes, surrounds the organelle and controls the communication of the plastid with other cell compartments. The stroma is the soluble phase of the chloroplast and the main site where carbon dioxide is converted into carbohydrates. The thylakoid membrane is the internal membrane network consisting of grana (flat compressed sacs) and lamellae (less dense structures), where oxygenic photosynthesis takes place. The present protocol describes step by step procedures required for the purification, using differential centrifugations and Percoll gradients, of intact chloroplasts from Arabidopsis, and their fractionation, using sucrose gradients, in three sub-compartments (i.e., envelope, stroma, and thylakoids). This protocol also provides instructions on how to assess the purity of these fractions using markers associated to the various chloroplast sub-compartments. The method described here is valuable for subplastidial localization of proteins using immunoblotting, but also for subcellular and subplastidial proteomics and other studies.