Plant Physiology https://doi.org/10.1093/plphys/kiad343 Martina Leso, Anna Kokla, Ming Feng & Charles W Melnyk   The formation of the haustorium is common to all parasitic plants and requires a dedicated process of growth, attachment and tissue invasion. Such a process presumably involves cell wall modifications to allow cell division, cell expansion and the digestion of host […]

Plants People Planet, https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.10491 Jonne Rodenburg & Lammert Bastiaans   Parasitic weeds in African rice systems affect household-level food security and income generation in Africa. Most affected farmers are smallholders with limited weed management capacities, crop production infrastructure and resources. The facultative parasite Rhamphicarpa fistulosa (rice vampireweed) has become a major problem in rainfed lowland rice whereas the […]

Striga hermonthica, a root parasitic weed from the Orobanchaceae family, devastates cereals yields and is, therefore, one of the major biological threats to global food security. Herein, we uncover a role of abscisic acid (ABA) as a rhizospheric signal that is involved in controlling Striga seed germination, Striga/Striga and Striga/host interactions. We propose that ABA serves as […]

Rafflesia is an endangered endophytic holoparasitic plant that lives the majority of its life inside the tissues of its sole plant host, Tetrastigma. Rafflesia floral buds emerge to produce the world’s largest single flower. Like other plants, holoparasites harbor a diverse microbiome, the role(s) of which has remained largely unstudied. Some of it might involve […]

https://doi.org/10.1111/pce.14781 This review summarizes the sensorial abilities that drive host location and selection in Cuscuta species, from directed growth of foraging individuals to initiation of parasitic structures. […]

https://doi.org/10.1093/plphys/kiad505 In this paper we show that Cuscuta can parry the changes in host cell wall composition that it triggered during its infection and that different host species are met with different strategies of gene expression fine-tuning. The same can be triggered by offering isolated cell wall polysaccharides in a host-free system (without a live […]

In this study, we analyzed the stress responses to the exogenous application of self exDNA and nonself exDNA from the mistletoe P. calyculatus as a source of DAMPs in mesquite trees (P. laevigata). Mesquite trees perceive self- and non-self exDNA with the synthesis of ROS-enzymes system, MAPKs activation and spatial concentrations of phytohormones.  https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/25/1/457 […]

In this study, a collaboration between Natural Resources Institute & Wageningen University & Research – Centre for Crop Systems Analysis, we demonstrate that the facultative parasitic weed Rhamphicarpa fistulosa benefits from fertiliser application (but only) when it parasitises on a host, both in terms of biomass and in terms of reproductive output (seeds). This contrasts […]