THE ULTRASTRUCTURAL MORPHOLOGY AND ONTOGENY OF OAT COLEOPTILE PLASTIDS

Structurally similar proplastids occur in the shoot, scutellum, and root of the oat embryo at the start of germination. These proplastids follow several pathways of differentiation, depending on their location within an organ and on previous exposure to light. During the first 24 hr of germination morphologically similar amyloplasts are formed from the preexisting proplastids in most of the cells of the seedling. After about 24 hr in the light, unique chloroplasts begin to develop in a subepidermal ring of small cortical parenchyma cells in the coleoptile and give the organ a pale green color. At 48 and 72 hr the coleoptile chloroplasts and etioplasts are conspicuously different from the corresponding leaf plastids in morphology and ontogeny but contain typical photosynthetic grana and prolamellar bodies. Study of the ontogeny of plastids in the epidermal and nongreening parenchymal regions of dark grown coleoptiles shows that these plastids undergo significant losses in starch content, and some increase of membranes within the plastid, related to the age of the cell. Light has little effect on the structure of these plastids. It is suggested that the ontogeny of all the plastid types of the oat seedling begins with a common precursor—a relatively simple proplastid that is present at the time of germination. Starch grains showing two distinct types of erosion, apparently enzymatic, were observed in oat coleoptile plastids. In one type (grooved appearance) the starch grains are consistently associated with plastid membranes, while in the other type (irregular, spiny appearance) the starch grains are associated with the plastid stroma only. We suggest that there are two enzyme systems for metabolizing starch in oat plastids—one membrane-bound and the other free in the stroma.