Category: Members

Striga (Striga hermonthica), commonly known as witchweed, is an obligate root parasitic weed that poses a major threat to global food security and cereal  production in sub-Saharan Africa. Currently, uncontrolled Striga infestation is causing significant losses in cereal production, affecting crop yields of cereals equating to at least $7 billion each year. There has been […]

Dear respected society members, I would like to share our website “Strigasolution”. We tried to show our ongoing activities on the Striga Control Project, funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Home   Muhammad JAMIL     […]

Dear members of the IPPS, In addition to our conference in Kenya this summer, the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (https://www.iufro.org/) is organizing a parasitic plant session during the 2022 meeting of its Forest Health, Pathology and Entomology work group. The conference will take place in Lisbon, Portugal, from 6 to 9 September 2022 […]

The development of the infection organ of the parasitic angiosperm genus Cuscuta is a dynamic process that is normally obscured from view as it happens endophytically in its host. We artificially induced haustoriogenesis in C. campestris by far-red light to define specific morphologically different stages and analyze their transcriptional patterns. This information enabled us to extract sets of high-confidence […]

Using MALDI-MS imaging, we visualized the localization of trisaccharide planteose in the dry seeds of Orobanche minor. Planteose was revealed to accumulate outside of the embryo, which supported the role of planteose as a storage carbohydrate. Since the first step of planteose is the hydrolysis of α-galactosyl linkage, we surveyed α-galactosidases in our transcriptome data. Among the […]

Cuscuta australis R.Br. is a stem parasite that obtains water and nutrients from host plants, with which it also exchanges proteins and mRNAs with host plants. Recently, a study found that novel miRNAs accumulated during C. campestris Yunk. parasitism of Arabidopsis thaliana L. However, the fate of miRNAs transferred from parasite to host plants as well as their […]

Cascading effects are ubiquitous in nature and can modify ecological processes. Most plants have mutualistic associations with mycorrhizal fungi, and can be connected to neighboring plants through common mycorrhizal networks (CMNs). However, little is known about how the distribution of nutrients by CMNs to the interconnected plants is affected by higher trophic levels, such as […]

Our study proposes a rapid, accurate and low-cost phenotyping tool for the sunflower/O. cumana interaction under controlled conditions through image analysis for broomrape tubercle analysis at early stages of the interaction. We optimized the phenotyping of sunflower/O. cumana interactions by using rhizotrons (transparent Plexiglas boxes) in a growth chamber to control culture conditions and Orobanche inoculum. […]

Background: Phosphorus (P) is an essential macronutrient for plant growth and development. Upon P shortage, plant responds with massive reprogramming of transcription, the Phosphate Starvation Response (PSR). In parallel, the production of strigolactones (SLs)—a class of plant hormones that regulates plant development and rhizosphere signaling molecules—increases. It is unclear, however, what the functional link is […]

K.C. Burns, International Journal for Parasitology Parasite virulence often differs between male and female hosts. However, less is known about how virulence might differ between male and female parasites. Here, I show that female plants of the dioecious mistletoe Misodendrum quadrifolium (Misodendraceae) grow larger than male plants. Correspondingly, females reduce the photosynthetic capacity of infected […]