Tissue-Specific Regulation of Plastid Protein Import via Transit-Peptide Motifs

) plastid preproteins encoded by recently duplicated genes and show that, within a duplicated preprotein pair, the isoform bearing the leucoplast motif usually has greater root protein abundance. Our findings represent a clear demonstration of tissue-specific regulation of organelle protein import and suggest that it operates by selective evolutionary retention of transit-peptide motifs, which enhances import into specific plastid types.