Interestingly, plastid RNAse P, the enzyme responsible for 5'-end cleavage of tRNA precursor RNAs, does not contain an associated RNA. This is in contrast to the situation in other eubacterial RNAse P enzymes which consist of a 377 to 400 nucleotide RNA plus a 14 kD protein. The requirement for RNA in eukaryotes RNAse P activity has not been established.

Base modification of chloroplast tRNAs is similar to that found, in bacteria. For example, tRNA-Glu contains several modified bases, including four pseudouridines, a 5-methylcytosine and a 5-methylaminomethyl'-2-thiouridine. This latter modification has been reported only in plastids and prokaryotes providing additional support for the endosymbiont theory prokaryotic origin of plastids.

Intron removal from most tRNA gene transcripts probably proceeds by a mechanism different from that used to remove introns from the transcripts of nuclear genes or protein coding genes in the chloroplast.

Instead of relying on conserved sequences at exon/intron boundaries, splicing of tRNA transcripts seems to depend on the secondary structure of the intron in a manner reminiscent of the splicing of certain ribosomal RNAs.