apicoplast membrane

GO:0160211 · Membrane organelle · Membrane · Proposed

Any of the lipid bilayers that surround an apicoplast and form the apicoplast envelope. [GO:0160211]

Part of: apicoplast (GO:0020011)

Components

Component	Type	Part of / acts on	Grounding	Genes	Stoichiometry	Essential	Role
apicoplast lipid bilayers	Lipid	part of	Reviewed label only (reviewed name; no accession asserted)			ESSENTIAL	Generic lipid bilayers that form the multi-membrane apicoplast envelope and separate the plastid from the surrounding parasite cytoplasm. `GO:0160211` GO:0160211 defines the apicoplast membrane as any of the lipid bilayers that surround an apicoplast and form the apicoplast envelope. `DOI:10.1186/1475-2875-12-25` Lemgruber et al. 2013 used cryo-electron tomography to resolve four membranes around the Plasmodium falciparum apicoplast. `DOI:10.1098/rstb.2009.0273` Lim et al. 2010 review the four-membrane apicoplast envelope and protein targeting across it.

NCBITaxon:5794 Apicomplexa — VARIABLE: Apicoplast membranes form the multi-bilayer envelope of apicoplasts, which are present in many apicomplexan parasites and absent from some lineages. [DOI:10.1016/j.ijpara.2016.08.005]

NCBITaxon:5833 Plasmodium falciparum — Human malaria parasite in which cryo-electron tomography resolved the apicoplast as an organelle bounded by four membranes. [DOI:10.1186/1475-2875-12-25]
NCBITaxon:5811 Toxoplasma gondii — Apicomplexan model used to show that Tic20 acts at the apicoplast inner membrane and is required for protein import into the plastid. [DOI:10.1073/pnas.0803862105]

apicoplast protein import boundary — Apicoplast membranes host translocons that support import of nuclear-encoded proteins across the surrounding envelope.
- DOI:10.1098/rstb.2009.0273 Lim et al. 2010 review bipartite targeting signals and import across the four apicoplast membranes.
- DOI:10.1371/journal.ppat.1003426 Agrawal et al. 2013 identified an apicoplast-localized ubiquitylation system required for import of nuclear-encoded plastid proteins.
- DOI:10.1073/pnas.0803862105 van Dooren et al. 2008 localized TgTic20 to the apicoplast and showed that TgTic20 disruption blocks apicoplast protein import.

The apicoplast membrane term covers the multiple lipid bilayers that form the apicoplast envelope and host protein-import translocons.

Subject	Predicate	Object	Evidence
apicoplast membrane	bounds	apicoplast	`GO:0160211` GO:0160211 defines the apicoplast membrane as any lipid bilayer that surrounds an apicoplast. `DOI:10.1186/1475-2875-12-25` Lemgruber et al. 2013 visualized four apicoplast membranes by cryo-electron tomography. `DOI:10.1098/rstb.2009.0273` Lim et al. 2010 review the apicoplast as a plastid surrounded by four membranes.
SELMA/ERAD-derived import machinery	resides in	apicoplast membrane	`DOI:10.1371/journal.ppat.1003426` Agrawal et al. 2013 characterized an apicoplast-localized ubiquitylation system required for nuclear-encoded protein import.
Tic20 inner-membrane translocon	resides in	apicoplast membrane	`DOI:10.1073/pnas.0803862105` van Dooren et al. 2008 assigned TgTic20 to the apicoplast innermost membrane import step.

CURATION_TODO (OPEN): Resolve an exact source-neutral grounding for the generic lipid constituents of the apicoplast membrane. The record is exactly grounded to GO:0160211, but no exact source-neutral lipid or lipid-bilayer CURIE was curated for the generic constituents of the surrounding apicoplast bilayers.

GO:0160211 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for the apicoplast membrane.
GO:0016020 Gene Ontology cellular-component parent term for membrane.
GO:0020011 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for the apicoplast.
DOI:10.1186/1475-2875-12-25 Lemgruber et al. 2013, Cryo-electron tomography reveals four-membrane architecture of the Plasmodium apicoplast, Malaria Journal.
DOI:10.1098/rstb.2009.0273 Lim et al. 2010, The evolution, metabolism and functions of the apicoplast, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.
DOI:10.1073/pnas.0803862105 van Dooren et al. 2008, Toxoplasma gondii Tic20 is essential for apicoplast protein import, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
DOI:10.1371/journal.ppat.1003426 Agrawal et al. 2013, An apicoplast localized ubiquitylation system is required for the import of nuclear-encoded plastid proteins, PLOS Pathogens.
DOI:10.1016/j.ijpara.2016.08.005 McFadden and Yeh 2017, The apicoplast: now you see it, now you don't, International Journal for Parasitology.

2026-09-13T13:27:47Z codex · CREATED_RECORD — Scaffolded by scripts/new_record.py
2026-09-13T13:28:59Z codex · EXPANDED_RECORD — Added membrane parentage, apicoplast parthood, a label-only apicoplast lipid-bilayer component, Apicomplexa/Plasmodium/Toxoplasma scope, a protein-import boundary function, GO/DOI evidence, a nonmechanistic apicoplast-membrane topology graph, and a lipid-grounding TODO.