Horizontal gene transfers dominate the functional mitochondrial gene space of a holoparasitic plant

What is it about?

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is the transmission of genetic material between unrelated species. HGT occurs frequently in flowering plant mitochondria but most foreign genes are nonfunctional. Exceptionally, the mitochondrial genome of the nonphotosynthetic, parasitic plant Lophophytum mirabile has acquired numerous intact foreign genes from its host plants and also lost most native genes. This makes Lophophytum an excellent model to evaluate the functional role of foreign mitochondrial genes. Analysis of its mitochondrial and nuclear transcriptomes reveals massive functional replacement of native genes by foreign copies. This raises compelling questions concerning underlying molecular and population-genetic forces, the latter with respect to the coevolutionary partnerships of foreign mitochondrial-encoded proteins with nuclear-encoded proteins that underlie oxidative phosphorylation.

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