FOREIGN MITOCHONDRIAL GENES IN A PARASITIC PLANT

ROULET ME.; PONCE G. ; GARCIA L.; GANDINI LC.

Mendoza

Congreso; XXXVI Reunion cientifica anual de la Sociedad de Biologia de Cuyo; 2018

Sociedad de Biología de Cuyo

Parasitism is a highly successful life strategy originated independently in11-13 lineages during the evolution of flowering plants. Parasitic plants are characterized by their ability to feed directly from other plants, invading the roots or stems of their plant hosts through a specialized structure called haustorium. This vascular connection allows the passage of water, nutrients, pathogens and nucleic acids. Consequently, parasitic relationships facilitate the exchange of genetic information, a process known as horizontal gene transfer (HGT). HGT refers to the movement of genetic information between unrelated organisms, and most cases of plant-plant HGT involve the mitochondria, in contrast to nuclear and chloroplast compartments. Mitochondrial sequences of the donor are transferred to the mitochondrial genome of another angiosperm and incorporated through homologous recombination. Parasitic plants are particularly susceptible to this phenomenon and represent an excellent system to examine the role of HGT in the evolution of the mitochondrial genome. In this study, we sequenced and analyzed the mitochondrial genome(mtDNA) of the holoparasite.