Studying RNA editing in transgenic chloroplasts of higher plants.

RNA editing in plant cell organelles is a posttranscriptional process that changes the identity of individual nucleotides by pyrimidine transitions. C-to-U conversions are the predominantly found modifications in both mitochondrial and chloroplast transcripts of vascular plants. Research on functional, mechanistic, and evolutionary aspects of plant RNA editing has benefited immensely from the development of transgenic technologies for higher plant chloroplasts. This chapter describes methods for the generation of plants with stably transformed chloroplast genomes and their use for studying RNA editing processes in vivo.