Spinach Chloroplasts Implanted in Mice Eyes Produce Light-Driven Molecules and Reduce Inflammation in Preliminary Study

Photosynthetic machinery harvested from spinach has been transplanted into the eyes of mice, where it transforms light into molecules that carry energy and can tame inflammation. Kuoran Xing, a bionanotechnologist at the National University of Singapore, and his colleagues isolated chloroplasts from leafy greens purchased at the FairPrice supermarket by blending, filtering and centrifuging them.

The researchers exposed thylakoid grana from the isolated chloroplasts by dunking them into a solution.

The findings were published in the journal Cell.

The work was inspired by sea slugs that steal photosynthetic machinery from algae, prompting the team to test whether mammalian cells could achieve a similar cross-kingdom transfer. ” Allard added that any effort to do this is necessarily going to look like a party trick at first.

Allard noted that only by trying the technique and finding out its limitations — such as how long the effects last and which cells can be targeted — can researchers work to build out the use cases.

The study suggests that plant-to-animal organelle swaps could lead to fresh biological insights as well as therapeutic applications.