Arabidopsis (rockcress) is a genus of small flowering plants in the cabbage and mustard family, Brassicaceae. Arabidopsis species are native to temperate and subarctic Eurasia and North America, North Africa, and the mountains of eastern tropical Africa. This genus is of great interest since it contains thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana), one of the model organisms used for studying plant biology and the first plant to have its entire genome sequenced. Changes in thale cress are easily observed, making it a very useful model.
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Arabidopsis in the context of Chloroplast
A chloroplast (/ˈklɔːrəˌplæst, -plɑːst/) is a type of organelle known as a plastid that conducts photosynthesis mostly in plant and algal cells. Chloroplasts have a high concentration of chlorophyll pigments which capture the energy from sunlight and convert it to chemical energy and release oxygen. The chemical energy created is then used to make sugar and other organic molecules from carbon dioxide in a process called the Calvin cycle. Chloroplasts carry out a number of other functions, including fatty acid synthesis, amino acid synthesis, and the immune response in plants. The number of chloroplasts per cell varies from one, in some unicellular algae, up to 100 in plants like Arabidopsis and wheat.
Chloroplasts are highly dynamic—they circulate and are moved around within cells. Their behavior is strongly influenced by environmental factors like light color and intensity. Chloroplasts cannot be made anew by the plant cell and must be inherited by each daughter cell during cell division, which is thought to be inherited from their ancestor—a photosynthetic cyanobacterium that was engulfed by an early eukaryotic cell.