A fascinating parasitic plant found lurking in clusters around the bases of trees has optimized its living strategy so well it's been able to prune nearly a third of its genome.
are probably related to functions essential in green plants, which have become functionally unnecessary in the parasites,""That said, there are probably instances where the gene loss was actually beneficial, rather than reflecting a simply loss of function. The loss of their entire abscisic acid biosynthesis pathway may be a good example. It may help them to maintain physiological synchronization with the host plants. This needs to be tested in the future.
This means some gene loss in parasites isn't just a loss of unnecessary function, but an adaptation to the parasite lifestyle. It's a fascinating revelation that could help us better understand how parasitic and symbiotic relationships evolve between organisms. The team suggests that other holoparasitic plants might display similar traits that could help not just study parasite-host relationships, but how plants communicate with each other.
"The study of parasitic plants deepens our understanding of dramatic genomic alterations and the complex interactions between parasitic plants and their hosts,""The genomic data provides valuable insights into the evolution and genetic mechanisms behind the dependency of parasitic plants on their hosts, and how they manipulate host plants to survive."
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