质体是植物细胞中的重要细胞器，承担着影响植物生长和繁殖的重要生理功能。质体通过分裂的方式进行增殖，质体分裂对细胞响应发育信号及环境变化具有重要影响。作为质体的典型代表，叶绿体分裂由在分裂位点上组装起来的一个庞大的分裂装置完成，该装置同时包围叶绿体双层膜的内侧和外侧，有若干蛋白质以复合物的形式调控该装置的运行。目前关于叶绿体分裂装置的定位、组装和工作机制还有很多不清楚以及存在争议的内容，这些都需要蛋白质结构信息对其分子机制作出分析和解释。本项目围绕叶绿体分裂装置如何定位和组装这一核心问题，拟对该过程中关键蛋白质复合物的结构与功能进行研究，通过解析其结构并结合体内和体外实验，阐明叶绿体分裂装置的定位、膜锚定以及在膜间隙中的信息传递等过程的分子机制。这些研究将在蛋白质结构水平上帮助我们理解叶绿体分裂装置，奠定叶绿体分裂过程的分子基础。

Plastids are vital organelles in plant cells, playing important metabolic functions that greatly affect plant growth and productivity. Plastids undergo a process of binary division in order to replicate, which allows the cell to act in response to developmental signals and environmental changes. As a typical plastid, choloroplast division is carried out by a huge plastid division machinery located at division sites, enclosing the chloroplast from both inside and outside, in which several proteins regulate the machinery in complex. Many aspects about the positioning, assembly and constriction activity are either unknown or controversial, which requires the structural information of proteins. The project will focus on the mechanism of positioning and assembly of the plastid division machinery and illustrate the molecular mechanism underlying the positioning, membrane anchoring, and information exchange in the intermembrane space, through the structural and functional studies of the key protein complexes. These researches will help understand the plastid division machinery, and lay the molecular foundation for the process of chloroplast division.