ArticlePLoS genetics2013
Massive mitochondrial gene transfer in a parasitic flowering plant clade.
Article in PLoS genetics, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 68 papers.
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Who cites it
68 citing papers in PubMed, 187 citations in OpenAlex.
- Vestigial Plastids in Parasitic Plants: Evolutionary Remnants or Adaptive Innovations?Plant, cell & environment · 2026Review
- Progress and prospects of parasitic plant biodiversity genomics.Plant & cell physiology · 2026Review
- Genomic Footprints of Multiple Host Lineages in the Mitochondrial and Nuclear Genomes of the HoloparasitePlants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Recombination and Retroprocessing in Broomrapes Reveal RNA-Mediated Gene Transfer Mechanism and a Generalizable Model for Mitochondrial Evolution in Heterotrophic Plants.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Horizontal gene transfer of the Pytheas sequence from Cuscuta to Orobanche via a host-mediated pathway.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- A record-setting mitogenome in the holoparasitic plant Balanophora yakushimensis accompanied by exceptional loss of organellar DNA repair and recombination genes.BMC biology · 2025Article
- Altered Mitochondrial Respiration Is Associated With Loss of Nuclear-Encoded OXPHOS Genes in Parasitic Broomrapes.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Mitochondrial genome evolution in the orchid subfamily Cypripedioideae (Orchidaceae).Functional & integrative genomics · 2025Article
- Unequally Abundant Chromosomes and Unusual Collections of Transferred Sequences Characterize Mitochondrial Genomes of Gastrodia (Orchidaceae), One of the Largest Mycoheterotrophic Plant Genera.Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Molecular translocation between parasitic plants and their hosts.Frontiers in plant science · 2025Review
- Article
- Quantitative Approach for Determining Reproductive Life-History Strategies of Parasitic Plants: A Case Study inEcology and evolution · 2025Article
- Cytonuclear evolution in fully heterotrophic plants: lifestyles and gene function determine scenarios.BMC plant biology · 2024Article
- The biology of the enigmatic corpse flower provides clues to its conservation.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Integration of large and diverse angiosperm DNA fragments into Asian Gnetum mitogenomes.BMC biology · 2024Article
- The complete mitochondrial genome ofMitochondrial DNA. Part B, Resources · 2024Article
- What we know so far and what we can expect next: A molecular investigation of plant parasitism.Genetics and molecular biology · 2024Article
- Invited Review Beyond parasitic convergence: unravelling the evolution of the organellar genomes in holoparasites.Annals of botany · 2023Review
- Mitochondrial genome comparison and phylogenetic analysis of Dendrobium (Orchidaceae) based on whole mitogenomes.BMC plant biology · 2023Article
- Genome-wide analysis of horizontal transfer in non-model wild species from a natural ecosystem reveals new insights into genetic exchange in plants.PLoS genetics · 2023Article
8 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 6 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Recent studies have suggested that plant genomes have undergone potentially rampant horizontal gene transfer (HGT), especially in the mitochondrial genome. Parasitic plants have provided the strongest evidence of HGT, which appears to be facilitated by the intimate physical association between the parasites and their hosts. A recent phylogenomic study demonstrated that in the holoparasite Rafflesia cantleyi (Rafflesiaceae), whose close relatives possess the world's largest flowers, about 2.1% of nuclear gene transcripts were likely acquired from its obligate host. Here, we used next-generation sequencing to obtain the 38 protein-coding and ribosomal RNA genes common to the mitochondrial genomes of angiosperms from R. cantleyi and five additional species, including two of its closest relatives and two host species. Strikingly, our phylogenetic analyses conservatively indicate that 24%-41% of these gene sequences show evidence of HGT in Rafflesiaceae, depending on the species. Most of these transgenic sequences possess intact reading frames and are actively transcribed, indicating that they are potentially functional. Additionally, some of these transgenes maintain synteny with their donor and recipient lineages, suggesting that native genes have likely been displaced via homologous recombination. Our study is the first to comprehensively assess the magnitude of HGT in plants involving a genome (i.e., mitochondria) and a species interaction (i.e., parasitism) where it has been hypothesized to be potentially rampant. Our results establish for the first time that, although the magnitude of HGT involving nuclear genes is appreciable in these parasitic plants, HGT involving mitochondrial genes is substantially higher. This may represent a more general pattern for other parasitic plant clades and perhaps more broadly for angiosperms.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.