chloroplast thylakoid membrane

GO:0009535 · Membrane organelle · Membrane · Proposed

The pigmented membrane of a chloroplast thylakoid. [GO:0009535]

Part of: chloroplast thylakoid (GO:0009534)

Xrefs: uniprot.location:SL-0058 — Chloroplast thylakoid membrane

UniProt location names: UniProt Consortium, CC BY 4.0. Reference label and route sources.

Components

Component	Type	Part of / acts on	Grounding	Genes	Stoichiometry	Essential	Role
chloroplast thylakoid lipid bilayer	Lipid	part of	Reviewed label only (reviewed name; no accession asserted)			ESSENTIAL	Pigmented chloroplast thylakoid lipid bilayer that bounds the thylakoid lumen and houses photosynthetic light-reaction complexes. `GO:0009535` GO:0009535 defines the chloroplast thylakoid membrane as the pigmented membrane of a chloroplast thylakoid. `uniprot.location:SL-0058` — Chloroplast thylakoid membrane UniProt SL-0058 maps directly to GO:0009535 and describes the membrane as an internal system carrying photosynthetic light reactions. `GO:0009543` GO:0009543 defines the chloroplast thylakoid lumen as the volume enclosed by the chloroplast thylakoid membrane. `uniprot.location:SL-0057` — Chloroplast thylakoid lumen UniProt SL-0057 maps the chloroplast thylakoid lumen to the child compartment bounded by chloroplast thylakoid membranes.

Taxonomic distribution

NCBITaxon:33090 Viridiplantae — COMMON: Green algae and land plants with chloroplasts contain chloroplast thylakoid membranes that support oxygenic photosynthetic light reactions. [DOI:10.1146/annurev-cellbio-120823-022747]
NCBITaxon:3055 Chlamydomonas reinhardtii — COMMON: Chlamydomonas reinhardtii has stacked and unstacked native chloroplast thylakoid membrane regions. [DOI:10.7554/eLife.04889]

Canonical examples

NCBITaxon:3055 Chlamydomonas reinhardtii — Unicellular green alga whose chloroplast thylakoid membrane architecture was resolved by cryo-focused ion beam milling and in situ cryo-electron tomography. [DOI:10.7554/eLife.04889]

Functions

photosynthesis, light reaction GO:0019684 — The chloroplast thylakoid membrane is the membrane surface where photosynthetic light-reaction complexes convert light energy into electron transport and a trans-thylakoid proton gradient.
- uniprot.location:SL-0058 — Chloroplast thylakoid membrane UniProt SL-0058 describes chloroplast thylakoid membranes as carrying out the light reactions of photosynthesis.
- DOI:10.1007/s00294-011-0339-1 Terashima, Specht and Hippler 2011 review Chlamydomonas chloroplast thylakoid photosynthetic complexes.
- DOI:10.1146/annurev-cellbio-120823-022747 Perez-Boerema et al. 2024 review thylakoid light reactions and electron transport as processes organized by thylakoid membranes.

Mechanism graphs

Chloroplast thylakoid membrane topology (FUNCTION)

The chloroplast thylakoid membrane encloses the thylakoid lumen and supports photosynthetic light reactions.

Subject	Predicate	Object	Evidence
chloroplast thylakoid membrane	encloses	chloroplast thylakoid lumen	`GO:0009543` GO:0009543 defines the lumen as the volume enclosed by a chloroplast thylakoid membrane. `uniprot.location:SL-0057` — Chloroplast thylakoid lumen UniProt SL-0057 identifies the chloroplast thylakoid lumen as a child compartment of the chloroplast thylakoid.
chloroplast thylakoid membrane	supports	photosynthesis, light reaction	`uniprot.location:SL-0058` — Chloroplast thylakoid membrane UniProt SL-0058 describes chloroplast thylakoid membranes as carrying out the light reactions of photosynthesis.

Discussions

CURATION_TODO (OPEN): Resolve an exact source-neutral grounding for the lipid constituent of the chloroplast thylakoid membrane. The record is exactly grounded to GO:0009535 and UniProt SL-0058, 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.
INTERPRETATION (RESOLVED): Keep the chloroplast thylakoid membrane distinct from the generic thylakoid membrane. GO:0009535 denotes the chloroplast-specific child membrane, while GO:0042651 denotes the broader thylakoid membrane class covering chloroplast, cyanelle, chromatophore and bacterial thylakoids.

Evidence

GO:0009535 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for chloroplast thylakoid membrane.
GO:0042651 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for thylakoid membrane, the broader thylakoid-membrane parent.
GO:0055035 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for plastid thylakoid membrane, the plastid-specific thylakoid-membrane parent.
GO:0009534 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for the chloroplast thylakoid that this membrane is part of.
GO:0009543 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for the lumen bounded by chloroplast thylakoid membranes.
GO:0019684 Gene Ontology biological-process term for photosynthesis, light reaction.
uniprot.location:SL-0058 — Chloroplast thylakoid membrane UniProt Subcellular Location SL-0058 maps Chloroplast thylakoid membrane to GO:0009535, places it under plastid thylakoid membrane and chloroplast thylakoid, and describes it as the light-reaction membrane system in chloroplasts.
uniprot.location:SL-0057 — Chloroplast thylakoid lumen UniProt Subcellular Location SL-0057 maps Chloroplast thylakoid lumen to GO:0009543 and places it under chloroplast thylakoid.
DOI:10.1146/annurev-cellbio-120823-022747 Perez-Boerema et al. 2024, Evolution of Thylakoid Structural Diversity, Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology.
DOI:10.1098/rstb.2009.0103 Keeling 2010, The endosymbiotic origin, diversification and fate of plastids, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.
DOI:10.1007/s00294-011-0339-1 Terashima, Specht and Hippler 2011, The chloroplast proteome: a survey from the Chlamydomonas reinhardtii perspective with a focus on distinctive features, Current Genetics.
DOI:10.7554/eLife.04889 Engel et al. 2015, Native architecture of the Chlamydomonas chloroplast revealed by in situ cryo-electron tomography, eLife.

Curation history

2026-09-13T02:09:42Z codex · CREATED_RECORD — Scaffolded by scripts/new_record.py
2026-09-13T02:10:31Z codex · EXPANDED_RECORD — Added thylakoid-membrane and plastid thylakoid-membrane parentage, chloroplast thylakoid parthood, the UniProt SL-0058 xref, a reviewed-label-only lipid-bilayer component, Viridiplantae and Chlamydomonas scope, a light-reaction function, a nonmechanistic topology graph, and resolved exact-child and lipid-grounding interpretations.
2026-09-13T02:16:30Z codex · ADDRESS_REVIEW — Resolved #738 by replacing the Viridiplantae row's broad plastid-origin support with Perez-Boerema et al. 2024 thylakoid structural-diversity evidence and by adding that DOI to record-level and light-reaction function evidence.

Source: data/structures/membrane_organelle/chloroplast_thylakoid_membrane.yaml