Analysis of expression patterns of translocon subunits of chloroplasts and mitochondria

The Toc/Tic and the Tom/Tim machineries facilitate import of preproteins into chloroplasts or mitochondria, respectively. After annotation of the Arabidopsis thaliana genome it became obvious that several genes encode for one component of the plant translocation machineries. To obtain an initial picture of the co-function and the co-regulation from coordinated regulation of gene expression, we examined 1277 independent Affymetrix-GeneChip experiments. A correlation of the expression behaviour of the investigated genes was calculated to achieve an answer including the vast amount of experimental data. Based on this analysis a co-action of different components is discussed and functional associations between Tic/Toc or Tim/Tom components are proposed.