Fibrillin influence on plastid ultrastructure and pigment content in tomato fruit

The protein termed fibrillin is involved in the formation of lipoprotein structures, such as plastoglobules and fibrils in certain chromoplast types, which have been implicated in the over-production of pigments due to a sink effect. In order to examine its effect in differentiating chromoplasts of a non-fibrillar type, the pepper fibrillin gene was expressed in tomato fruit. Both the transcript and protein were found to accumulate during tomato...