Chloroplasts, the parts of cells that allow plants and algae to photosynthesize, are thought to have originated over 1 billion years ago, when photosynthetic cyanobacteria lived symbiotically within other primitive cellular organisms.
Replicating the development of this photosynthetic capability in other cells today—by placing chloroplasts inside animal cells—was previously thought impossible: animal cells recognize chloroplasts as foreign bodies and digest them. But a Japanese research team has changed this thinking. It has developed a technique to isolate photosynthetically active chloroplasts from the primitive algae Cyanidioschyzon and transplant them into Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells, a type of cultured animal cell line, and still retain their functionality.
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