In silico Characterization of Ferritin-1 Chloroplast Targeting Peptide Encoding Sequence in Chickpea and Pigeonpea

Chloroplast is an important organelle and a hub of photosynthetic reactions that occur in all plants. Majority of the chloroplast proteins are encoded by the nucleus and then transported into the chloroplast. The chloroplast transport is aided by leader sequence, chloroplast targeting peptide (cTP) that directs the proteins into the chloroplast. We identified the genes encoding chloroplast targeting proteins from chickpea (Cicer arietinum) and pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan and Cajanus cajanifolius) genomes. All the sequences were aligned, conserved motifs were identified and their phylogeny was deciphered. In this study, structural and functional features of chloroplast transit peptides of Ferritin-1 and its putative role in chloroplast tar-geting have been examined. The study would impart better understanding of targeting heterologous pro-teins to chloroplasts in pulses.