plastid thylakoid lumen

GO:0031978 · Membrane organelle · Subcellular region · Proposed

The volume enclosed by a plastid thylakoid membrane. [GO:0031978]

Part of: plastid thylakoid (GO:0031976)

Taxonomic distribution

NCBITaxon:33090 Viridiplantae — COMMON: Photosynthetic green algae and land plants have chloroplast thylakoids whose membranes enclose a lumenal compartment. [DOI:10.1146/annurev-cellbio-120823-022747]
NCBITaxon:38254 Glaucocystophyceae — COMMON: Glaucophyte cyanelles contain cyanelle thylakoid lumens, the cyanelle subtype of plastid thylakoid lumen. [GO:0033114]

NCBITaxon:3055 Chlamydomonas reinhardtii — Unicellular green alga whose native chloroplast thylakoid lumen and membrane architecture were resolved by in situ cryo-electron tomography. [DOI:10.7554/eLife.04889]

The plastid thylakoid lumen is the internal plastid thylakoid compartment enclosed by the thylakoid membrane.

Subject	Predicate	Object	Evidence
plastid thylakoid lumen	is part of	plastid thylakoid	`GO:0031978` GO:0031978 identifies the plastid thylakoid lumen. `GO:0031976` GO:0031976 identifies the containing plastid thylakoid.
plastid thylakoid membrane	encloses	plastid thylakoid lumen	`GO:0031978` GO:0031978 defines the plastid thylakoid lumen as the volume enclosed by a plastid thylakoid membrane. `GO:0055035` GO:0055035 identifies the enclosing plastid thylakoid lipid bilayer.

INTERPRETATION (RESOLVED): Keep the plastid thylakoid membrane as the boundary of the plastid thylakoid lumen rather than as a lumen component. GO:0031978 denotes the volume enclosed by a plastid thylakoid membrane, whereas GO:0055035 denotes the lipid bilayer membrane that encloses that volume.

GO:0031978 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for plastid thylakoid lumen.
GO:0031977 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for thylakoid lumen, the broader plastid-independent thylakoid-lumen parent.
GO:0031976 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for the plastid thylakoid that contains this lumen.
GO:0055035 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for the plastid thylakoid membrane that encloses this lumen.
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:0033114 Gene Ontology cellular-component term for cyanelle thylakoid lumen, the cyanelle subtype of plastid thylakoid lumen.

2026-09-13T22:52:56Z codex · CREATED_RECORD — Scaffolded by scripts/new_record.py
2026-09-13T22:53:55Z codex · EXPANDED_RECORD — Added thylakoid-lumen parentage, plastid thylakoid parthood, Viridiplantae and Glaucocystophyceae scope, a Chlamydomonas example, GO and literature evidence, a nonmechanistic lumen-boundary topology graph, and a resolved boundary interpretation.
2026-09-21T10:04:10Z codex · REPLACED_UNREADABLE_EVIDENCE — Replaced unreadable Jackson et al. 2015 Glaucophyta evidence with reachable cyanelle evidence for #1231.