plastid membrane

GO:0042170 · Membrane organelle · Membrane · Proposed

Any lipid bilayer that surrounds a plastid or is part of the plastid envelope. Primary plastids (in plants, green algae, red algae, and glaucophytes) are surrounded by two membranes; complex plastids derived from secondary endosymbiosis are surrounded by three or four membranes. [GO:0042170]

Part of: plastid (GO:0009536)

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 lipid bilayer	Lipid	part of	Reviewed label only (reviewed name; no accession asserted)			ESSENTIAL	Generic lipid bilayer constituent of a plastid membrane, covering plastid envelope membranes and internal plastid thylakoid membranes when the exact child membrane is not specified. `GO:0042170` GO:0042170 defines plastid membrane as any lipid bilayer that surrounds a plastid or is part of the plastid envelope. `GO:0009536` GO:0009536 defines plastids as membrane-bounded cytoplasmic organelles.

Taxonomic distribution

NCBITaxon:2759 Eukaryota — RARE: Plastid membranes occur in the scattered eukaryotic lineages that retain primary, secondary, or otherwise reduced plastids. [DOI:10.1098/rstb.2009.0103]
NCBITaxon:33090 Viridiplantae — COMMON: Green algae and land plants contain primary plastids delimited by envelope plastid membranes, with photosynthetic lineages also carrying plastid thylakoid membranes. [DOI:10.1098/rstb.2009.0103]

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 scope (FUNCTION)

The generic plastid membrane class covers envelope bilayers and internal plastid thylakoid membranes without choosing a lineage-specific child membrane.

Subject	Predicate	Object	Evidence
plastid outer membrane	is a	plastid membrane	`GO:0009527` GO:0009527 defines plastid outer membrane as an envelope lipid bilayer and places it under GO:0042170.
plastid inner membrane	is a	plastid membrane	`GO:0009528` GO:0009528 defines plastid inner membrane as an envelope lipid bilayer and places it under GO:0042170.
plastid thylakoid membrane	is a	plastid membrane	`GO:0055035` GO:0055035 identifies the plastid thylakoid membrane as the lipid bilayer of any thylakoid within a plastid and places it under GO:0042170.

Discussions

INTERPRETATION (RESOLVED): Keep the GO:0042170 generic membrane parent distinct from exact plastid envelope, thylakoid, apicoplast, and cyanelle child membrane records. GO:0042170 denotes a broad plastid membrane class whose children include envelope bilayers and plastid thylakoid membranes. Exact topology, membrane count, retained peptidoglycan, and protein-import machinery belong on the child records for plastid envelope, apicoplast membrane, cyanelle membrane, and plastid thylakoid membrane.
CURATION_TODO (OPEN): Resolve an exact source-neutral grounding for the generic lipid constituent of a plastid membrane. The record is exactly grounded to GO:0042170, but the generic lipid bilayer constituent is intentionally left as a reviewed-label-only component until an exact source-neutral lipid or membrane-constituent CURIE is curated.

Evidence

GO:0042170 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for plastid membrane.
GO:0016020 Gene Ontology cellular-component parent term for membrane.
GO:0009536 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for plastid.
GO:0009526 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for the double plastid envelope whose inner and outer bilayers are plastid membranes.
GO:0009527 Gene Ontology cellular-component child term for plastid outer membrane.
GO:0009528 Gene Ontology cellular-component child term for plastid inner membrane.
GO:0055035 Gene Ontology cellular-component child term for plastid thylakoid membrane.
GO:0033113 Gene Ontology cellular-component child term for cyanelle membrane.
GO:0160211 Gene Ontology cellular-component child term for apicoplast 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:10.1007/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

2026-09-14T02:04:05Z codex · CREATED_RECORD — Scaffolded by scripts/new_record.py
2026-09-14T02:04:38Z codex · EXPANDED_RECORD — Added generic membrane parentage, plastid parthood, a reviewed-label-only plastid lipid bilayer component, Eukaryota and Viridiplantae scope, a Chlamydomonas example, GO/DOI evidence, a nonmechanistic child-scope graph, a generic-scope interpretation, and a lipid-grounding TODO.
2026-09-14T02:14:18Z codex · ADDRESS_REVIEW — Resolved #866 by adding cyanelle and apicoplast GO child-term evidence to the plastid-membrane scope discussion; resolved #867 by making the plastid thylakoid edge evidence cite the GO:0042170 child placement.

Source: data/structures/membrane_organelle/plastid_membrane.yaml