chloroplast inner membrane

GO:0009706 · Membrane organelle · Membrane · Proposed

The inner, i.e. lumen-facing, lipid bilayer of the chloroplast envelope; also faces the chloroplast stroma. [GO:0009706]

Synonyms: chloroplastic inner membrane

Part of: chloroplast envelope (GO:0009941)

Xrefs: uniprot.location:SL-0051 — Chloroplast inner membrane

Components

Component	Type	Part of / acts on	Grounding	Genes	Stoichiometry	Essential	Role
chloroplast inner lipid bilayer	Lipid	part of	Reviewed label only (reviewed name; no accession asserted)			ESSENTIAL	Stroma-facing lipid bilayer that separates the chloroplast stroma from the intermembrane space. `GO:0009706` GO:0009706 defines the chloroplast inner membrane as the inner lipid bilayer of the chloroplast envelope that also faces the chloroplast stroma. `uniprot.location:SL-0051` — Chloroplast inner membrane UniProt SL-0051 maps directly to GO:0009706 and describes the chloroplast inner membrane as the boundary between the chloroplast stroma and intermembrane space.

NCBITaxon:33090 Viridiplantae — COMMON: Photosynthetic green algae and land plants carry chloroplasts bounded by chloroplast envelopes with inner membranes. [DOI:10.1098/rstb.2009.0103]
NCBITaxon:3055 Chlamydomonas reinhardtii — COMMON: Chlamydomonas reinhardtii has a chloroplast inner membrane carrying the Tic side of the TOC-TIC import supercomplex. [DOI:10.1016/j.cell.2022.10.030]

NCBITaxon:3055 Chlamydomonas reinhardtii — Green-algal model used for structural analysis of a TOC-TIC supercomplex that spans the chloroplast outer and inner envelope membranes. [DOI:10.1016/j.cell.2022.10.030]

The chloroplast inner membrane is the stroma-facing lipid bilayer of the chloroplast envelope and delimits the intermembrane space.

Subject	Predicate	Object	Evidence
chloroplast inner membrane	is part of	chloroplast envelope	`GO:0009706` GO:0009706 defines this inner membrane as a lipid bilayer of the chloroplast envelope.
chloroplast inner membrane	bounds	chloroplast stroma	`GO:0009706` GO:0009706 defines this membrane by its inner chloroplast-envelope position and states that it also faces the chloroplast stroma. `GO:0009570` GO:0009570 identifies the chloroplast stroma as the space enclosed by the double membrane of a chloroplast.
chloroplast inner membrane	delimits	chloroplast intermembrane space	`uniprot.location:SL-0051` — Chloroplast inner membrane UniProt SL-0051 describes the chloroplast inner membrane as separating the chloroplast stroma from the intermembrane space. `GO:0031972` GO:0031972 defines the chloroplast intermembrane space as the region between the inner and outer lipid bilayers of a chloroplast envelope.

CURATION_TODO (OPEN): Resolve an exact source-neutral grounding for the lipid constituent of the chloroplast inner membrane. The record is exactly grounded to GO:0009706 and UniProt SL-0051, but the lipid bilayer constituent is intentionally left as a reviewed-label-only component until an exact source-neutral lipid or membrane-constituent CURIE is curated.

GO:0009706 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for chloroplast inner membrane.
GO:0009528 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for plastid inner membrane.
GO:0031969 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for chloroplast membrane.
GO:0009941 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for chloroplast envelope.
GO:0031972 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for the chloroplast intermembrane space delimited by the inner membrane.
GO:0009570 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for the chloroplast stroma.
uniprot.location:SL-0051 — Chloroplast inner membrane UniProt Subcellular Location entry SL-0051 maps Chloroplast inner membrane to GO:0009706 and places it under both chloroplast membrane and plastid inner membrane.
DOI:10.1098/rstb.2009.0103 Keeling 2010, The endosymbiotic origin, diversification and fate of plastids, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.
DOI:10.1016/j.cell.2022.10.030 Jin et al. 2022, Structure of a TOC-TIC supercomplex spanning two chloroplast envelope membranes, Cell.

2026-09-13T03:15:20Z codex · CREATED_RECORD — Scaffolded by scripts/new_record.py
2026-09-13T03:15:55Z codex · EXPANDED_RECORD — Added the UniProt SL-0051 xref, plastid-inner and chloroplast-membrane parentage, chloroplast-envelope parthood, a reviewed-label-only inner lipid bilayer component, Viridiplantae and Chlamydomonas scope, a nonmechanistic topology graph, and a lipid-bilayer grounding TODO.
2026-09-13T03:22:19Z codex · ADDRESS_REVIEW — Resolved #744 by removing overbroad SL-0051 evidence from the chloroplast envelope parthood edge.