Could animals, even humans, have chloroplasts?

Humans have pigments in the skin to absorb harmful light rays so there would be a problem with the skin blocking the penetration of the sunlight. Secondly, think about how much surface area even a small plant has with it very thin, flat leaves. The giant clam that has intracellular algae uses its extensive mantle to increase surface area exposed to the light. For an organism as large as we are, we'd have to have a much greater surface area to expose to the sunlight to drive the photosynthetic process. Personally I like the shape of the human body as it is currently.

Another issue would be how to handle large amounts of sugar in our body tissues and fluids. It could overwhelm the ability of the liver to metabolize. The excessive sugar could cause water and electrolyte balance in the body to change. The excess sugar would be excreted by the kidneys so it would be wasted energy.

And as mentioned by other respondents, our immune system would have to be modified so it wouldn't attack the chloroplasts that grew in the cells.

Your question is a good mental exercise!

Chloroplast In Animal Cell

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The body will recognize those cells as foreign and kill them. If the chloroplast was inserted into a germline cell and the cell didn't die, the chloroplasts would be chopped up by the lysosome. Human cells do not have the genes necessary to make and support chloroplasts, so no more would be made.

Very interesting question...

Well, you cannot just blindly put a Chloroplast inside a human cell...it would be a foreign invader to the immune system. What you are trying to say is probably placing genes that code for chloroplasts into human or other animal's cells.

In that case you would be altering the DNA and there in no guarantee that the genes you inserted will be expressed.

Also, our cells metabolize sugar and oxygen but plants cells make sugar and oxygen with chloroplasts so there are opposite things...I don't how you can have both these functions in one cell...that makes no sense but not sure..check out this cool forum on this topic:

http://forums.myspace.com/t/4288997.aspx?fuseactio...

When I was a teenager, I liked that idea too.

A couple of problems with it:

a) Plant cells are set up to support chloroplasts, and animal cells aren't. I'm betting that the chloroplasts depend on nuclear DNA in the plants for a lot of their construction.

b) Chloroplasts are big. An animal cell could fit, maybe, one or two. Plant cells are much much bigger than animal cells, and can fit dozens of chloroplasts.

well at first chloroplasts was parasite which attacked cells so maybe we are not able to change all grown_up human but what would happen if we make chloroplasts enter the germ cell? the cell may become symbiotic with chloroplast

Well people don't have chloroplasts same with animals because chloroplasts is what make sugars through photosynthesis in plants. Hope it helps

Sadly I doubt that this would be feasible on a cellular level. Plants and animals have very distinct types of DNA and RNA. Although there are a few cross-over species, they are eukaryote single cells creatures (phytoplankton etc.) Chloroplasts also require several chemicals we typically cant process in the human body. More likely for what you suggest would be a plant like fabric to wear and process light to sugar. followed by "eating" your clothes.

Well, there are creatures, that aren't plants, that possess chloroplasts and the ability to photosynthesis. These organism are cyanobacteria. As in terms of humans, you would have to change the entirety of the human genome.

Surely you don't want to stand under the sun for that long period of time. You probably seek some shelter in an air conditional room just to avoid that freaking hot sun. Unfortunately for plants, they can't move.