There are these moluscs in Florida, different species from a genus, that eat algae and internalize the chloroplasts in their own cells. Take a look, it is pretty cool. Some species can live for months without eating. There is some evidence of lateral gene transfer between the molusc and the algae: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2584685/?tool=pubmed

Look this review as well:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1539252/?tool=pubmed

Best wishes, have fun!

Eduardo

Hi Narumi.

I have never thought of this before, and as I am not an expert on the subject, please take the following answer as a merely speculative one. Also, I may be replying with more questions than answers, so, sorry for that.

First of all, chloroplast is a whole organelle and has its own genome, but chloroplast genome is not completely autonomous; in fact, chloroplast depends largely on nuclear factors to control or promote gen expression (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10946107). Also, there is a number of chlorplast genes that were transferred to the nucleous of eukaryotic cells during and after the endosymbiotic process (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v393/n6681/abs/393162a0.html). Considering those two statements, my answer to your question about creating mammals with chloroplasts would be that it is not possible: I don't think it is possible to create mammals with chloroplasts.

I'm thinking here about mitochondria, which the same as chloroplasts are membrane-bound organelles having a circular genome. Mitochondria pass to the next generation by cytoplasmic or maternal inheritance. I think with chloroplasts is sort of the same thing (uniparental inheritance), so I think that if you are per any chance able to clone all the chloroplast and chloroplast-related genes in a mammal, you won't be able to (i) regulate chloroplast gene expression in time, (ii) regulate gen expression in space and (iii) build a chloroplast "from scratch" (i.e., without a pre-existing chloroplast).

Sorry for a long reply. I'll keep an eye on this question as I'm kind of intrigued by it.

Regards from México.

It is an interesting topic and one of my student who wrote science fiction story over this topic. I don't if this really possible or not....!!!!!!

i'd like to say about deposition of chloroplast in potato is injurious,but an animal with chlorophyll will be a good option for food scarcity.

This may create a new research area in science. I guess you should try this on animals first, like hamster or mice, then u should design your experiment according to the results..

Dear Rodriguez,

Thank you for detailed suggestions. I'm very glad to discuss with you.

I didn't know that chloroplast depend on so many host factors. Some of them may be bad to mammalian cells. I should test what function do the factors show in mammalian cells as easy as possible. This is a little interesting.

(i)(ii)

I am now investigating what plant promoters are functional in mammalian cells. These results may give me some hints for solutions of these problems.

(iii)

I didn't think this problem. How to build up chloroplasts?

Should I inject chloroplasts to mammalian cells from plant cells?

I don't have any idea now. This is very simple, but most difficult problem.

Thank you for very interesting comments.

Best regards from Japan.

Dear Namraj, Mohammad, Vikram and Priyanka.

Thank you for information and comments. I'm very glad, because you were excited by this topic.

Euglena is an interesting animal. Lower animals may help to this investigation.

This is a very difficult topic. However, I don't think such a GREEN animal is just fiction. This is a final goal of my question about differences between animal and plant.

Dear Narumi,

this is a very old but still exciting topic!

I think the first answer covered the main problems that you might face.

On the other hand, i strongly suggest you to go back to very old and simple organisms with chloroplasts: Algae. and amongst them, Chlamydomonas (http://www.chlamy.org/) which is one-cell organism with only one chloropast. It is commonly use to study chloroplast biochemistry. And its genome is sequenced, which helps a lot... And i don't think its genome is still as complex as higher plants.

With such a tool, combined to simple animals (paramecia?) or fungi (yeast) you might be able to do some tests...

Also think about cyanobacteria that are believed to be the kind of organism that gave rise to chloroplast after endosymbiosis. If your goal is to know whether you can create animal cells with photosynthesis, then i suggest to you to give a closer look to cyanobacteria.

good luck and best regards!

There are these moluscs in Florida, different species from a genus, that eat algae and internalize the chloroplasts in their own cells. Take a look, it is pretty cool. Some species can live for months without eating. There is some evidence of lateral gene transfer between the molusc and the algae: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2584685/?tool=pubmed

Look this review as well:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1539252/?tool=pubmed

Best wishes, have fun!

Eduardo

It is such an interesting question.

Not very sure about the possible approaches but i feel there could be few.

We can connect it with artificial endosymbiosis (under study), we know that plant chloroplast is the the result of endosymbiosis and if, some how we could develop this in In-Vitro conditions, in that case we can use chloroplast or chloroplast like organelle of lower organism such as cyanobacteria, then an endosymbiosis can be developed b/w chloroplast containing organism and mammals.

All the best

Its possible with fish:

C. M. Agapakis, H. Niederholtmeyer, R. R. Noche, T. D. Lieberman, S. G. Megason, J. C. Way, P. A. Silver, Towards a Synthetic Chloroplast Plos One 6, (2011).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0018877

Dear Pierre and Eduardo,

Thank you very much for very interesting information. The lower animals is useful for this study.

I was surprised that the papers from Eduardo. The papers were described the horizontal gene transfer.

I wonder whether similar phenomenon will occur between Chlamydomonas and yeast by two hybrid yeast system etc...

Dear Panchsheela,

Thank you for comments.

I agree for the necessity of gene modification including host organelle to induce the artificial endosymbiosis.

Dear Steven,

Thank you very much for information.

I have already read the paper from you. It was amazing examinations.

In the paper, it was seems that the cyanobacteria was harmless to the FISH individual. Can it achieve in mammal? What benefits does the host animal obtain? (i.e; resistant towards glucose starvation by photosynthesis in the cyanobacteria)

It happens that i just saw a seminar about evolution of endosymbiosis. The speaker was Eva Nowack. I suggest you to have a look at her work!

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=eva+nowack

all the best.