Some parasitic plants can ‘steal’ genetic information from their hosts through horizontal gene transfer, which they then use to make themselves a better parasite. Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is a ...

If you happen to come across plants of the Balanophoraceae family in a corner of a forest, you might easily mistake them for fungi growing around tree roots. Their mushroom-like structures are ...

Dodder, a parasitic plant that causes major damage to crops in the US and worldwide every year, can silence the expression of genes in the host plants from which it obtains water and nutrients. This ...

The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. A parasitic bacterium has found a way to turn its host plant sterile, forcing it to grow leaves ...

Using the model Orobanchaceae parasitic plant Phtheirospermum japonicum, scientists from Nagoya University and other research institutes from Japan have discerned the molecular mechanisms underlying ...

There are plants which, like the vampires of Halloween legend, suck the “blood” of other plants. Parasitic plants take nutrients and water from other plants by extracting them from their host through ...

Parasites are the ultimate moochers, earning a living by stealing hard-earned nutrients from their hosts. Now, a new study in plants suggests that parasites sometimes give something back: foreign ...

Some parasitic plants steal genetic material from their host plants and use the stolen genes to more effectively siphon off the host's nutrients. A new study led by researchers at Penn State and ...

Understanding the communications weaponry system of dodder, which operates much like a computer virus, could provide researchers with a method to engineer parasite-resistant plants. Dodder, a ...

Pathogens can alter their hosts, for example malaria parasites can make humans more attractive to mosquitoes, but how they do it has remained a mystery. Scientists from the John Innes Centre on ...

Figure 1: Phylogenetic evidence for two horizontal transfer events of the gene atp1 into Plantago (blue). We cannot altogether rule out the possibility that the involvement of parasitic plants as ...