Chloroplast transit peptides from the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii share features with both mitochondrial and higher plant chloroplast presequences

Chloroplast transit peptides from the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii have been analyzed and compared with chloroplast transit peptides from higher plants and mitochondrial targeting peptides from yeast, Neurospora and higher eukaryotes. In terms of length and amino acid composition, chloroplast transit peptides from C. reinhardtii are more similar to mitochondrial targetting peptides than to chloroplast transit peptides from higher plants. They also contain the potential amphiphilic alpha-helix characteristic of mitochondrial presequences. However, in similarity with chloroplast transit peptides from higher plants, they contain a C-terminal region with the potential to form an amphiphilic beta-strand. As in higher plants, transit peptides that route proteins to the thylakoid lumen consist of an N-terminal domain similar to stroma-targeting transit peptides attached to a C-terminal apolar domain that share many characteristics with secretory signal peptides.