plastid thylakoid

GO:0031976 · Membrane organelle · Other · Proposed

Any thylakoid within a plastid. [GO:0031976]

Part of: plastid (GO:0009536)

Has part: plastid thylakoid membrane (GO:0055035); plastid thylakoid lumen (GO:0031978)

Xrefs: uniprot.location:SL-0278 — Plastid thylakoid

Components

Component	Type	Part of / acts on	Grounding	Genes	Stoichiometry	Essential	Role
plastid thylakoid membrane	Lipid	part of	`GO:0055035`			ESSENTIAL	Pigmented lipid bilayer of plastid thylakoids that bounds the lumen and carries photosynthetic light-reaction complexes. `GO:0055035` GO:0055035 defines the plastid thylakoid membrane as the lipid bilayer membrane of any thylakoid within a plastid. `DOI:10.1146/annurev-cellbio-120823-022747` Perez-Boerema et al. 2024 review plastid thylakoid structural diversity among algae and plants.

NCBITaxon:33090 Viridiplantae — COMMON: Photosynthetic green algae and land plants have chloroplast thylakoids inside plastids. [DOI:10.1146/annurev-cellbio-120823-022747]
NCBITaxon:38254 Glaucocystophyceae — COMMON: Glaucophyte cyanelles contain cyanelle thylakoids, the cyanelle subtype of plastid thylakoid. [GO:0009843]

NCBITaxon:3055 Chlamydomonas reinhardtii — Unicellular green alga whose chloroplast plastid thylakoids were resolved by in situ cryo-electron tomography. [DOI:10.7554/eLife.04889]

photosynthesis, light reaction GO:0019684 — Plastid thylakoids provide an internal membrane system for the light reactions of photosynthesis.
- DOI:10.1146/annurev-cellbio-120823-022747 Perez-Boerema et al. 2024 review thylakoid architecture as the conserved site of photosynthetic light reactions in plastids.

Plastid thylakoids contain an internal lumen bounded by a photosynthetic thylakoid membrane that supports light reactions.

Subject	Predicate	Object	Evidence
plastid thylakoid membrane	bounds	plastid thylakoid lumen	`GO:0031978` GO:0031978 identifies the plastid thylakoid lumen. `GO:0055035` GO:0055035 identifies the lipid bilayer membrane of a plastid thylakoid.
plastid thylakoid membrane	supports	photosynthesis, light reaction	`DOI:10.1146/annurev-cellbio-120823-022747` Perez-Boerema et al. 2024 review the plastid thylakoid membrane as the site of oxygenic photosynthesis.

INTERPRETATION (RESOLVED): Keep the whole plastid thylakoid distinct from its membrane and lumen children. GO:0031976 denotes any whole thylakoid within a plastid, while GO:0055035 denotes its lipid bilayer membrane and GO:0031978 denotes the plastid thylakoid lumen.
INTERPRETATION (RESOLVED): Represent plastid thylakoid as a membranous plastid structure without asserting a lineage-specific organelle class. The broader GO:0009579 thylakoid class is intentionally separated from organelles, and its exact plastid child still groups whole-thylakoid compartments that are modelled with different structure_kind values in narrower records.

GO:0031976 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for plastid thylakoid.
GO:0009579 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for the broader thylakoid class.
GO:0009536 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for plastid.
GO:0055035 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for plastid thylakoid membrane.
GO:0031978 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for plastid thylakoid lumen.
GO:0019684 Gene Ontology biological-process term for photosynthesis, light reaction.
uniprot.location:SL-0278 — Plastid thylakoid UniProt Subcellular Location SL-0278 maps Plastid thylakoid to GO:0031976.
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:10.7554/eLife.04889 Engel et al. 2015, Native architecture of the Chlamydomonas chloroplast revealed by in situ cryo-electron tomography, eLife.
GO:0009843 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for cyanelle thylakoid, the cyanelle subtype of plastid thylakoid.

2026-09-13T22:34:13Z codex · CREATED_RECORD — Scaffolded by scripts/new_record.py
2026-09-13T22:35:07Z codex · EXPANDED_RECORD — Added thylakoid parentage, plastid parthood, plastid thylakoid membrane and lumen parts, the UniProt SL-0278 xref, a GO-grounded thylakoid membrane component, Viridiplantae and Glaucocystophyceae scope, a Chlamydomonas example, a photosynthesis light-reaction function, and a nonmechanistic topology graph.
2026-09-13T22:42:44Z codex · ADDRESS_REVIEW — Resolved #845 by keeping UniProt SL-0278 as an xref and record-level GO:0031976 mapping source while removing it from the photosynthesis light-reaction function and topology-edge evidence.
2026-09-21T10:04:10Z codex · REPLACED_UNREADABLE_EVIDENCE — Replaced unreadable Jackson et al. 2015 Glaucophyta evidence with reachable cyanelle evidence for #1231.