plastid

GO:0009536 · Membrane organelle · Membrane bounded organelle · Proposed

Any member of a family of organelles found in the cytoplasm of plants and some protists, which are membrane-bounded and contain DNA. Plant plastids develop from a common type, the proplastid. [GO:0009536]

Part of: GO:0005737 — cytoplasm (no local record)

Xrefs: uniprot.location:SL-0209 — Plastid

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
plastid membrane	Lipid	part of	`GO:0042170`			UNKNOWN	Lipid bilayers that surround plastids or form plastid envelope boundaries. `GO:0042170` GO:0042170 defines plastid membrane as any lipid bilayer surrounding a plastid or belonging to the plastid envelope. `uniprot.location:SL-0209` — Plastid UniProt SL-0209 describes plastids as membrane-bounded organelles.

Taxonomic distribution

NCBITaxon:2759 Eukaryota — RARE: Plastids occur in plants and scattered protist lineages as primary, secondary, or otherwise reduced photosynthetic and non-photosynthetic organelles. [DOI:10.1098/rstb.2009.0103]
NCBITaxon:33090 Viridiplantae — COMMON: Green algae and land plants contain primary plastids derived from a cyanobacterial endosymbiont. [DOI:10.1098/rstb.2009.0103]
NCBITaxon:3055 Chlamydomonas reinhardtii — COMMON: The unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii has a chloroplast, a photosynthetic primary plastid. [DOI:10.1007/s00294-011-0339-1]

Canonical examples

NCBITaxon:3055 Chlamydomonas reinhardtii — Unicellular green-algal model whose chloroplast is a primary plastid used for plastid proteome and protein-biogenesis studies. [DOI:10.1007/s00294-011-0339-1]

Mechanism graphs

Plastid membrane boundary and stroma (FUNCTION)

Plastids are cytoplasmic, membrane-bounded organelles delimited by surrounding plastid membranes and containing a plastid stroma.

Subject	Predicate	Object	Evidence
plastid	resides in	cytoplasm	`GO:0009536` GO:0009536 defines plastids as a family of organelles found in the cytoplasm.
plastid membrane	bounds	plastid	`GO:0042170` GO:0042170 identifies lipid bilayers that surround plastids or belong to plastid envelopes. `uniprot.location:SL-0209` — Plastid UniProt SL-0209 describes plastids as membrane-bounded organelles.
plastid	contains	plastid stroma	`GO:0009532` GO:0009532 identifies the plastid stroma as the ground substance of plastids.

Discussions

INTERPRETATION (RESOLVED): Keep lineage-specific thylakoid, envelope, membrane-count, and nucleomorph assertions on exact plastid child records. GO:0009536 spans primary plastids, secondary plastids, and non-photosynthetic plastids. The generic record therefore models the common membrane-bounded plastid/stroma topology and leaves specialized thylakoids, double envelopes, and retained nucleomorphs to exact child records.

Evidence

GO:0009536 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for plastid.
GO:0043231 Gene Ontology cellular-component parent term for intracellular membrane-bounded organelles.
GO:0005737 — cytoplasm Gene Ontology cellular-component term for cytoplasm.
GO:0042170 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for generic plastid membranes.
GO:0009532 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for plastid stroma.
uniprot.location:SL-0209 — Plastid UniProt Subcellular Location entry SL-0209 maps the Plastid subcellular location to GO:0009536.
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.

Curation history

2026-09-13T20:30:59Z codex · CREATED_RECORD — Scaffolded by scripts/new_record.py
2026-09-13T20:32:59Z codex · EXPANDED_RECORD — Added UniProt SL-0209 xref, intracellular membrane-bounded organelle parentage, cytoplasm parthood, a GO-grounded plastid-membrane component, Eukaryota/Viridiplantae/Chlamydomonas scope, GO/UniProt/DOI evidence, a nonmechanistic plastid topology graph, and a resolved generic-boundary interpretation.
2026-09-13T20:36:26Z codex · FIXED_GO_LABEL — Aligned GO:0042170 component and graph-node labels to the canonical singular plastid membrane label.
2026-09-13T20:42:30Z codex · ADDRESS_REVIEW — Resolved #834 by narrowing GO:0042170 plastid membrane role and topology wording to surrounding or envelope-bounding plastid membranes.

Source: data/structures/membrane_organelle/plastid.yaml