Fig. 9
Analysis of chlorophyll development in tobacco and expression profiles of related genes in pear. a Visualization of chloroplast abundance in the leaves (10 cm2 section) of wild-type (WT) and PbrGA2ox1-overexpressing (OE) tobacco seedlings at 35 days after vernalization (DAV) under long-day conditions using the grinding method. b The ultrastructure of chloroplasts from the leaves of WT and OE plants. C, chloroplast; S, starch granule; P, plastoglobuli; G, granum; TGS, thylakoid granum stacks. Scale bars: 10 μm (left) and 2 μm (right). c Number, and (d) size of chloroplasts per cell in the leaves of WT and OE seedlings at 35 DAV. The data represent the mean ± SD of values obtained from at least ten chloroplasts from five individual cells (n = 5). e Expression analysis of the genes related to chloroplast development in the spots injected with empty vector (EV) or PbrGA2ox1-overexpression construct (PbrGA2ox1_OE). The gene expression level detected in EV-injected spots was used as the control and set to ‘1’. PbrActin was used as the internal reference gene. Values shown are the mean ± SD of three biological replicates (n = 3). ‘ns’ and asterisks above the bars indicate insignificant and significant differences at p < 0.05 (one-way ANOVA) to the control based on Tukey’s test