title: Plant science. Genomic-scale exchange of mRNA between a parasitic plant and its hosts.
abstract: Movement of RNAs between cells of a single plant is well documented, but cross-species RNA transfer is largely unexplored. Cuscuta pentagona (dodder) is a parasitic plant that forms symplastic connections with its hosts and takes up host messenger RNAs (mRNAs). We sequenced transcriptomes of Cuscuta growing on Arabidopsis and tomato hosts to characterize mRNA transfer between species and found that mRNAs move in high numbers and in a bidirectional manner. The mobile transcripts represented thousands of different genes, and nearly half the expressed transcriptome of Arabidopsis was identified in Cuscuta. These findings demonstrate that parasitic plants can exchange large proportions of their transcriptomes with hosts, providing potential mechanisms for RNA-based interactions between species and horizontal gene transfer.
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Pathology, Physiology and Weed Science, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA.
authors.forename: Gunjune
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Pathology, Physiology and Weed Science, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA.
authors.forename: Megan L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: LeBlanc
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology and the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA.
authors.forename: Eric K
authors.initials: EK
authors.lastname: Wafula
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology and the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA.
authors.forename: Claude W
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: dePamphilis
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Pathology, Physiology and Weed Science, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA. westwood@vt.edu.
authors.forename: James H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Westwood
mesh_terms: D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000235:genetics* / Q000469:parasitology; D034182:Cuscuta / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology; D018076:DNA, Complementary; D022761:Gene Transfer, Horizontal; D017343:Genes, Plant; D018745:Genome, Plant; D006790:Host-Parasite Interactions; D018551:Solanum lycopersicum / Q000235:genetics* / Q000469:parasitology; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D018749:RNA, Plant / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D059467:Transcriptome
chemical_list: D018076:DNA, Complementary; D012333:RNA, Messenger; D018749:RNA, Plant