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 […]