chloroplast membrane

GO:0031969 · Membrane organelle · Membrane · Proposed

Either of the lipid bilayers that surround a chloroplast and form the chloroplast envelope. [GO:0031969]

Part of: chloroplast envelope (GO:0009941)

Components

Component	Type	Part of / acts on	Grounding	Genes	Stoichiometry	Essential	Role
chloroplast envelope lipid bilayer	Lipid	part of	Reviewed label only (reviewed name; no accession asserted)			ESSENTIAL	Generic lipid-bilayer constituent of a chloroplast envelope membrane when the exact inner or outer membrane is unspecified. `GO:0031969` GO:0031969 defines chloroplast membrane as either lipid bilayer that surrounds a chloroplast and forms the chloroplast envelope. `GO:0009941` GO:0009941 defines the chloroplast envelope as the double lipid bilayer that encloses the chloroplast.

NCBITaxon:33090 Viridiplantae — COMMON: Photosynthetic green algae and land plants carry chloroplasts bounded by chloroplast envelopes with inner and outer chloroplast membranes. [DOI:10.1098/rstb.2009.0103]
NCBITaxon:3055 Chlamydomonas reinhardtii — COMMON: Chlamydomonas reinhardtii has a chloroplast envelope whose outer and inner membranes are spanned by TOC-TIC protein import machinery. [DOI:10.1016/j.cell.2022.10.030]

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

The generic chloroplast membrane class covers either lipid bilayer of the chloroplast envelope when the exact inner or outer membrane is unspecified.

Subject	Predicate	Object	Evidence
chloroplast membrane	is part of	chloroplast envelope	`GO:0031969` GO:0031969 defines the generic chloroplast membrane as either bilayer that forms the chloroplast envelope. `GO:0009941` GO:0009941 identifies the complete double lipid bilayer of the chloroplast envelope.
chloroplast inner membrane	is a	chloroplast membrane	`GO:0009706` GO places GO:0009706 as an is_a child of the generic chloroplast membrane term.
chloroplast outer membrane	is a	chloroplast membrane	`GO:0009707` GO places GO:0009707 as an is_a child of the generic chloroplast membrane term.

INTERPRETATION (RESOLVED): Exclude GO:0009535 chloroplast thylakoid membrane from the GO:0031969 chloroplast membrane envelope-bilayer scope. GO:0031969 is defined as either lipid bilayer that surrounds a chloroplast and forms the chloroplast envelope, whereas GO:0009535 identifies the separate internal membrane of a chloroplast thylakoid.
CURATION_TODO (OPEN): Resolve an exact source-neutral grounding for the generic lipid constituent of a chloroplast envelope membrane. The record is exactly grounded to GO:0031969, 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:0031969 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for chloroplast membrane.
GO:0042170 Gene Ontology cellular-component parent term for plastid membrane.
GO:0009941 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for chloroplast envelope.
GO:0009707 Gene Ontology cellular-component child term for chloroplast outer membrane.
GO:0009706 Gene Ontology cellular-component child term for chloroplast inner membrane.
GO:0009535 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for the distinct chloroplast thylakoid 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.

2026-09-14T02:27:10Z codex · CREATED_RECORD — Scaffolded by scripts/new_record.py
2026-09-14T02:27:47Z codex · EXPANDED_RECORD — Added plastid-membrane parentage, chloroplast-envelope parthood, a reviewed-label-only envelope lipid bilayer component, Viridiplantae/Chlamydomonas scope, GO/DOI evidence, a nonmechanistic inner-outer membrane scope graph, a thylakoid-exclusion discussion, and a lipid-grounding TODO.